Talking Point: Keep violent drunks off the radar

A police officer has spoken of the effects of alcohol-fuelled violence, including an assault on his own daughter and having to pull a dead teenager from the River Derwent after a night out. Why he thinks clubs should scale back their opening hours >>

TOUGH: Police are overloaded at night in Hobart.

Inspector Colin Riley is president of the Police Association of Tasmania and believes late-night permit hours on waterfront venues should either be reduced or inspectors should be made to work until 4 or 5am, because our police cannot keep up.

Here are his words:

COVID-19 restrictions imposed on the community have highlighted to the Police Association of Tasmania the impact of excessively late-hour alcohol consumption.

This is obvious in the massive reduction of assaults against members of the public and police officers, especially when focused on the large number of out-of-hours venues on the waterfront, which operate after midnight into the early hours — now shut completely because of COVID-19.

BID TO LIMIT CLUB, BAR HOURS AS ALCOHOL-FUELLED ASSAULTS FALL

I write this from two perspectives:

As a police officer who subdued violent, drunk people, and has recovered a deceased teenager from the River Derwent after he fell into the water and drowned — then explained what occurred to his parents.

Secondly, as the father of two daughters, I have had first-hand experience of one of them being subject to an unprovoked assault in these circumstances.

Our members are tired of policing preventable alcohol related violence and believe post-COVID-19 we have a unique opportunity to positively impact public safety — particularly for young adults — by reducing out-of-hours permits.

Venue owners have indicated to our members that there is very little income generated after 2am — they are only open “because everyone else is”.

We are not asking for a blanket withdrawal of permits, but a review of the need for venues to remain open to 4am or 5am.

Compare offences in the Hobart division — bounded by Taroona, New Town and the Tasman Bridge — in the past 30 days of COVID-19 restrictions and the same period in 2019:

PUBLIC PLACE ASSAULTS involving alcohol or drugs reported to police — reduced by 89 per cent

LIQUOR INFRINGEMENT NOTICES issued — reduced by 87 per cent

PUBLIC ORDER INCIDENTS — reduced by 49 per cent.

Police attend a New Year’s Eve briefing.

Due to this reduction of anti-social, alcohol-fuelled behaviour on the Hobart waterfront, police capacity has not been redirected from other crime investigations and the policing of COVID-19 restrictions.

Members of the public are not being subject to violence to the same extent, or abuse, assault and self-inflicted injury, and Tasmania Police officers aren’t being assaulted having to intervene in these matters.

Hospitals and ambulances aren’t treating victims’ injuries.

Businesses are not having to clean their shopfronts of urine or vomit and repair damage — most of which goes unreported.

No member of the public has been subject to a one-punch assault and no one has drowned with alcohol present in their bodies. A review of deaths on the waterfront in the past decade would discover high levels of alcohol as a common denominator.

Licensing Commission inspectors do not work in the hours when out-of-hours permits for venues are in operation.

This gap creates an increased workload for our members to police.

We struggle to keep the public safe at these times, let alone police these venues and unfortunately, therefore, they don’t receive the appropriate attention. The Police Association on behalf of concerned members, wants out-of-hours permits reduced and aligned to Licensing Commission inspectors’ working hours.

Alternatively, change inspectors’ working hours to cover the permit hours until 4am or 5am so they then have first-hand knowledge of what is occurring and be directly accountable.

It’s not feasible for our members to continue to be the 24/7 policing service when also undertaking the roles of other government agencies.

These “little jobs” add up to an unreasonable workload for our members — unnecessarily diminishing our focus on core policing.

If you have not ventured out to the waterfront between 2am and 5am on a Saturday or Sunday morning when extended trading is occurring, and if you then happened to, I suggest you would be shocked and appalled.

Watch as Hobart’s drunk youth go into battle, urinate, vomit and abuse strangers.

Watch police attempt to establish a safe environment.

Alternatively, come with us when we take a statement at the hospital from an innocent victim, or we inform parents that their son or daughter has drowned.

We have an opportunity to change the way society behaves. We should take it.

Inspector Colin Riley is president of the Police Association of Tasmania.