Adelaide pubs rocked by surge in ice raids

Pub owners and police are demanding tougher action against ice-related crimes.

South Australian state persident of the Australian Hotels Association David Basheer. Picture: Tom Huntley

Pub owners and police have formed a united front to demand tougher action against ice-related crimes, with South Australian ­hotels rocked by an unpreced­ented surge in robberies linked to crystal meth.

The state has become a microcosm of the national ice epidemic, with its normally peaceful pubs being robbed at the rate of almost one a week this year.

The latest robbery occurred during dinner service last Saturday at Adelaide’s Mawson Lakes Hotel, during which a patron was stabbed in the back after confronting two intruders. It was the 34th such robbery this year and police are openly ­attributing the surge to demand for ice.

The police and pubs have two concerns — the increasing desperation of people wanting to ­obtain the drug, and the reluctance of the courts to impose custodial penalties. They believe it is creating a circle where users stop at nothing to obtain money to score and are going after softer targets, while dealers have little fear of repercussions.

Publican David Basheer, the state president of the Australian Hotels Association, said anxiety within the industry was “unprecedented”.

“It’s enormously stressful … there is a sense of: who’s going to be next?” he said. “Everyone has had a friend or a colleague who has been affected.”

Normally circumspect police have openly admitted the number of these crimes has surged, and are blaming ice.

“It is pretty clear to detectives that the use of meth is a factor and that a number of people arrested for these crimes are heavy users of methamphetamine, which ­appears to be driving a substantial amount of this crime wave,” said Detective Superintendent Mark Trenwith, the officer in charge of the Serious and Organised Crime Branch.

Fed-up police officers have pro­vided The Weekend Australian with a breakdown of court judgments from this year where convicted drug dealers, many on their second or multiple offences, were given bonds rather than jail time for crimes that can attract penalties from 10 years to life.

A police dossier shows that, in June, 11 people were convicted and sentenced for possession of large quantities of ice within South Australia, but just one ­received a custodial sentence.

“In almost every single case the sentencing judge made comments regarding the scourge of the drug ice in our community,” the dossier reads. “They also comment­ on the need to sentence in a way that discourages both the ­accused and others.

“Yet in the month of June 2019, 10 out of 11 drug dealers caught and convicted of the crime will not spend a day in gaol.”

The galling thing for police is that in most of the cases the evidence against the offenders confirmed­ they were highly organ­ised in their work as drug dealers.

They include offenders such as Joshua Mark Sanders, who was found in possession of 14.41g of methylamphetamine worth $14,000, as well as 88.3g of dried cannabis in three bags, digital scales, four ice pipes and $3000 cash, and whose mobile phone had text messages indicating he had been dealing drugs since ­October 2017.

Sanders received a sentence of four years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of two years, but this was wholly suspended to a three-year good behaviour bond.

Another offender, George Awkar, was caught with 45.6g of meth crystals containing 33.2g of pure methylamphetamine, with a street value of about $36,000, numero­us mobile phones containing texts suggesting he had been dealing for at least six months, and $23,000 in cash, of which it was agreed $5000 related to profits from selling. His sentence of two years and nine months was wholly suspended under supervision of corrections.

Police Association president Mark Carroll said the courts were failing to recognise the level of public alarm and the efforts of police in fighting the drug.

“Police charged with the onerous responsibility of investigating drug crime frequently emerge from courtrooms not only frustrated but actually staggered at the soft sentences,” he said.