Deadline: Burgertory boss Hash Tayeh wants to make mince meat out of Avi Yemini
Fast-food boss Hash Tayeh has challenged Avi Yemini to jump in the boxing ring to settle their beef, but the media figure has questioned why a peace activist wants to go the biff.
Police & Courts
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Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest crime buzz.
Hash browned-off and ready to rumble
Burger boss Hash Tayeh has promised to make mincemeat of outspoken news figure Avi Yemini.
Tayeh, who runs Melbourne’s Burgertory fast-food chain, has challenged Yemini to get in the boxing ring with him and settle their beef, once and for all.
He appears to hold considerable ill-will towards Yemini, if the language in an Instagram post making the fight invitation is anything to go by.
“Your usual boldness and provocations are known to all. Yet, behind your screen, you’ve been spreading relentless lies about me for months,” Tayeh wrote.
The businessman actually said his prospective opponent should be well-placed to duke it out because of his fitness program.
“Avi, with your daily training regimen and past experience running the IDF training gym in Caulfield, you should be feeling confident,” Tayeh said.
“After all, according to you I’m just a ‘professional hate crime hoaxer’.
“Get your team to reach out to mine and let’s make this thing a reality.”
Yemini said he found it interesting that a peace activist would immediately resort to conflict to resolve differences of opinion.
“Straight to violence. Let’s have an open discussion. Less violence, more conversation,” Yemini said.
Palestinian activist Tayeh’s goading of Yemini comes after a period of considerable turbulence, the latest episode coming last month when his home in Lower Templestowe was firebombed.
Last November, the Burgertory outlet in Caulfield North was torched.
Tayeh labelled that a hate crime, leading to a volatile night as pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Jewish community members at a Caulfield synagogue.
Senior police quickly dismissed the hate crime assertion and two men were arrested and charged months later.
Grand theft Occy
Surf great Mark Occhilupo has appealed for thieves to find himself after a brazen movie night theft.
Grainy video has emerged of the moment Occhilupo’s likeness was snatched by a slow-moving thief who struck in the foyer of the Lorne Theatre.
Two promotional cardboard cut-outs of the boardriding icon have been taking pride of place in venues hosting 25th anniversary screenings of Occumentary, a film created by legendary lensman Jack McCoy.
It might be a crime but some pretty funny CCTV has surfaced of the moment one of the Occys is snatched.
As two blokes pose for a selfie with one Occy, a third sidles up to the other cut-out and sticks it under his arm.
Like good thieves everywhere, he then casually shuffles out into the night as though he’s doing absolutely nothing wrong.
We’re guessing it’s possible the three men were in cahoots.
“Nice work. You’ve got 24 hours to return me,” Occhilupo said on McCoy’s Instagram page.
This column will not be too judgmental about such behaviour as even noble members of the fourth estate are not without sin.
We recall a long-lost incident in which a colleague woke up beside a statue taken from a venue which had hosted the previous night’s company Christmas party.
The newsman was given his marching orders, a decision quickly rescinded after staff voted to down tools unless it was reversed.
Not our volt
Victoria Police has denied their members unjustifiably tasered a man during a highly charged affray in Yea last weekend
There had been reports a defenceless punter “rode the lightning” after police responded to a fracas at a licensed venue on High St.
A Victoria Police statement said a review of body camera footage showed no charge was administered.
“What occurred was that the member activated the taser and warned the offender to comply with directions. This is a common practice referred to as a ‘warning arc’ and it makes the distinctive taser noise heard in the footage,” a VicPol statement said.
The statement went on to say the cops did use OC spray after finding themselves badly outnumbered in a “highly dynamic scene”.
As they tried to help treat someone affected by the spray, a man tried to kick and punch the officers and a woman jumped onto the back of one of the officers.
A second man then is accused of trying to grab a gun from one of the members.
The spray came out again and all three were arrested.
A Yea woman, 27, and a Taggerty man, 29, were charged with affray, assaulting police and failing to leave licensed premises.
A 26-year-old man from Glenburn was charged with affray and failing to leave licensed premises.
Department of youth
A decade ago, a kid who had been involved in dozens of aggravated burglaries, stabbed another teen for his hat and habitually rockets along our freeways in stolen cars would be something of an outlier.
Not any more.
He is, these days, just one of many particularly high-risk kids at the top of the youth crime tree, none of whom can be identified but who are household names in police circles despite being still in their mid-teens.
The boy is from the state’s east and has carried out crimes everywhere from Bairnsdale to the city in an outlaw career which began at the age of 10.
Deadline has been told he once stabbed someone for a hat and that his idea of fun is doing an aggravated burglary to steal a car then hitting the road at 150km/h-plus.
Unfortunately, as one frustrated officer said, he is just one of too many who receive chances beyond what they deserve.
It remains one of the modern miracles of crime in this state that so few lives have been lost in our long wave of youth aggravated burglaries.
“He will kill himself in a car or he’ll kill someone else in a robbery,” the member said.
“Then, people will ask, ‘what did the police do to stop this’?”
Bye bye Bothwell
Crown security boss Craig Walsh has moved into semi-retirement after a long stint at the big house.
In a previous life, Mr Walsh had a distinguished career in Victoria Police where he served at, among others, St Kilda station, the special operations group, the armed robbery squad and the homicide squad.
He once sported a striking mullet and has got as great a collection of war stories as any ex-cop in the state, most of which can’t be published because this is a family newspaper or on the grounds they may incriminate.
We’ve previously skirted around one of them but, now that he has moved on, we can clarify Mr Walsh is the former officer known by the many as Bothwell.
To explain, Mr Walsh is a man with a booming voice and he used it to loudly question the choice of name when the birth of a colleague’s child was announced on an office whiteboard.
“What the (expletive deleted) kind of name is Bothwell,” he bellowed.
The detective was informed for the first of many times that the note said mother and baby “both well”.