MP details own attack amid push to hear from more gay hate crime victims
An Australian-first investigation into Sydney’s “dark chapter” of gay hate crimes is pursuing new tactics to expose the full truth behind multiple murders and attacks and may eventually see witnesses compelled to give evidence.
Shayne Mallard was sitting in front of the parliamentary committee he chairs.
Reading some information about grief counselling, he started to tear up. Something was being triggered inside, a memory that now came into focus.
“In the early 90s I was happily going down at night to (Sydney’s) Oxford Street and two guys brushed me up. I thought they were robbing me. They knocked me to the ground near the Darlinghurst court. One had walked into me out of the blue.”
Mr Mallard asked why they had hit him. They knocked him to the ground. When he started screaming they ran off. He was not badly hurt and walked to the end of the street and found a police paddy wagon.
The Liberal MP had forgotten all about the incident, all those years ago, until that moment, and he was emotional at the memories. Was it because he was gay?
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Mr Mallard is chairing the NSW Parliament’s inquiry into gay and transgender hate crimes between 1970 and 2010, which held its first public hearing in early November.
The committee hopes to hear evidence from the Police Commissioner, Mick Fuller, in the future.
But members don’t want it to end there. They now intend recommending that the inquiry be allowed to continue its work beyond the March State election in a bid to take evidence in regional areas.
Mr Mallard says many people who were subjected to hate crimes had left Sydney and were living in regional and remote areas and they too deserve an opportunity to tell their stories to the inquiry.
It is hoped, if the committee is allowed to continue its work, hearings would be held in places like Lismore, Dubbo, Bega and other areas.
It is the first inquiry of its kind in Australia, looking at hate crimes against the LGBTIQ community and the failure of police to respond appropriately.
It now seems likely the Social Issues Committee, which is conducting the inquiry, will recommend a judicial inquiry into the hate crimes, with power to compel witnesses to testify. Mr Mallard says he is not sure if that recommendation will be made soon or after further hearings, if they take place.
Mr Mallard describes the 80 homicides and more than 20 unsolved homicides in NSW, now believed to be gay and transgender hate crimes, as a dark chapter in the State’s history.
“We want to make concrete recommendations for change, so that we do not, ever again in our lifetimes, examine over 80 homicides and more than 20 unsolved homicides of people in NSW who suffered the indignity and injustice of being a victim of gay and transgender crime,” he says.
He says the evidence given to the inquiry, in late November, by David McMahon, was heartbreaking to hear.
‘THEY WERE ABOUT TO THROW ME OFF THE CLIFF’
It was December 1989 and Mr McMahon, a Bondi Beach resident, was going for a jog at Marks Park, a well-known gay beat, when he came across a group of 18-24-year-olds, who attacked him.
“I remember being hit. I remember being bashed. I remember being told that they were going to put a stick — rape me like that. I remember that a young girl with a green bikini top was the one that was inciting most of the actions that were happening.
“Then I do not remember anything else apart from being about to be thrown off the cliffs … Then I came to, when they were about to throw me off the cliff. I thought to myself, ‘Either I do something now or I am going over’. I just seemed to turn. I had my footing and there was loose gravel everywhere. And that is how I got away. And then I ran. They followed me for quite some time.”
His experience was further aggravated by the fact that later, when he went to the Bondi police station to make a statement, he was unbelievably locked in a cell for almost three hours.
Mr McMahon told the inquiry he later learned the group who attacked him were known as People that Kill or PTK.
DOZENS OF GAY MEN ‘DESERVE JUSTICE’
Another witness at the inquiry was Steve Johnson, who gave evidence via Skype from his home in the US, regarding the death of his brother Scott Johnson, whose body was found at the base of North Head in Manly in December 1988.
Initially written off as suicide, three coronial inquests later, State Coroner Michael Barnes last year ruled the 27-year-old was the victim of a gay hate crime and that he was either pushed or fell escaping his attackers.
Last December NSW Police offered a $1 million reward for information relating to Mr Johnson’s death.
His brother Steve told the inquiry it was important to solve the crime and hold the murderer accountable.
“Regardless of where the investigation leads there should be no sacred cows. I believe it is not too late to solve these cases but time is running out. Bringing justice in Scott’s and other cases will send a more credible message … it would tell the world that the NSW Police Force not only says it believes in equal protection and equal justice but that it can deliver it. And, it could well give a voice to the dozens of other gay men who also deserve justice and whose families would cherish receiving it,” Mr Johnson said.
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