As it happened: WA news on Friday, May 16

We’re bringing our live blog to a close for today. We will have more for you in the next live news coverage.

But before we go: Are you a fan of music, or someone keen to support conservation efforts?

The two interests will collide at a concert at Freo Social on June 1.

The Sea Grass Festival 2025 was organised by the Indigenous owners of business of Tidal Moon – a wild sea cucumber harvesting business based near Shark Bay – who have made it their mission to restore the local seagrass.

Between 2011 and 2012 a marine heat wave wiped out a quarter of Shark Bay’s seagrass beds – the world’s largest seagrass meadow.

The concert twill help fund important restoration work and draw attention to the need to protect ecologically sensitive marine areas.

Tickets to the festival can be purchased from Moshtix here.

Enjoy your weekend!

Be sure to tune in again next week, where we’ll bring you the news as it happens.

Western Force coach Simon Cron has hit out at his side’s unfair travel fixture, calling upon the “smart” organisers at Super Rugby to ensure the zig-zag “beast” never happens again.

Hamish Stewart of the Force takes on the defence during the round four Super Rugby Pacific match.Credit: Getty Images

Given Perth’s isolation, the Force are always going to be the most travelled side in the competition.

But their schedule hit ridiculous new heights this season – by the end of the regular-season campaign, the Force will have travelled 49,050 kilometres.

Adding in the pre-season trip to take on the Brumbies in Canberra, the Force would have travelled 55,250km since February.

The fatiguing nature of the travel load played a big role in Cron deciding to rest star trio Harry Potter, Hamish Stewart and Nic White for Saturday’s clash in Fiji, despite the Force needing to win to stay in the finals hunt

Wallabies scrumhalf White raised concerns about the Force’s fixture even before the season started, saying the team had been “stitched up”.

Cron has been feeling the same all season.

“Now don’t get me wrong, we all travel. And from Perth, we’re going to travel more – good as gold,” Cron said.

“But the zig-zag nature of home and away, and getting a bye at the end of the season for the highest travelled team probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

AAP

St John WA development officer Brian Gallop has been announced as WA’s Volunteer of the Year for 2025, for his 30 years of service including in emergency response, volunteer training and community outreach.

Brian Gallop.

Gallop was handed the honour at an awards night this week, held in the lead up to National Volunteer Week next week.

Three other individuals, and three organisations, were also recognised in different categories.

They included a young volunteer who contributed more than 1000 operational hours in emergency callouts with St John WA and an advocate who has devoted more than 40 years to the organisation Living Proud.

More than 230 nominations were received, with 21 finalists shortlisted.

Volunteering WA chief executive Tina Williams said volunteering was a “powerful force that brings people together”.

“This year’s winners are ambassadors for connecting communities, and show us that with passion, dedication and selflessness, any one of us has the potential to make a real difference in the lives of others,” she said.

Volunteering Minister Hannah Beazley said the winners were quiet achievers, but each had an inspiring story to tell.

You can view the full list of winners here.

Yesterday, we brought you the news that the state government has highlighted the cycling and arts aspects of its proposed $217 million Burswood Park street motorsport circuit, after their plans received staunch criticism from the community and political opposition.

Premier Roger Cook unveiled the Burswood Entertainment and Sporting Precinct plan, after months of emphasising the street circuit aspect of the plans instead ahead of the election.

Responses to the change have continued to pour in today, despite Sports Minister Rita Saffioti denying there had been any rework of the marketing.

WA Greens Leader Brad Pettitt has labelled the change “shameful and misleading”.

“The government is trying to pull the wool over the community’s eyes by rebranding this deeply unpopular idea,” he said.

“Let me be really clear – no one believes it. In a housing and cost of living crisis, the community does not want our public green spaces destroyed for a noisy, polluting racetrack.”

But WestCycle chief executive Wayne Bradshaw said the precinct would be a great facility, and a “massive win for people who ride bikes”.

“There has been much talk about the impact of the motor sports circuit and the Supercars event but this is a small part of the precinct’s offer – just a weekend of racing in the year,” he said.

“Whilst appreciating there will be some inconvenience to residents during this period, the year-round tourism, entertainment, and cycling value of the precinct delivers an overall benefit to the people of WA.”

A Perth woman has just been sentenced to five years and five months in prison by the WA Supreme Court for stabbing her boyfriend to death in 2023.

Lauren Vivian Brown, pictured inset, was found guilty of manslaughter.Credit: 9 News Perth

Lauren Vivian Brown, 29, was originally charged with the murder of FIFO worker James Sheahy, but a jury found her guilty on the lesser charge of manslaughter earlier this year.

Brown was working as an escort in early 2023 when she met Sheahy.

The pair had been in a relationship for just six months when an argument in their Joondalup apartment turned fatal.

The court was told he had assaulted her before she grabbed the knife, fatally stabbing him in the chest.

Brown was pregnant at the time of the incident.

During sentencing this morning, the court was told Brown had been raised by heroin addicts and had witnessed violence as a child, before embarking on a series of relationships that involved domestic violence.

Justice Joseph McGrath made Brown eligible for parole and her sentence was backdated to September 2023 when she was first held in custody.

More to come.

Staying with the press conference with WA Police this morning, and Detective Senior Sergeant Anthony Thompson took the opportunity to discuss another incident involving the Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang.

The burns on the man’s legs suggest others tried to burn off his Comanchero-related tattoos.Credit: Police Media

He said on Tuesday, a 51-year-old man known to police was dropped off outside the emergency department in Rockingham with multiple gunshot wounds and injuries to his legs, including burns.

Thompson said police suspected the burns were “a product of other people trying to remove his tattoos” related to the Comanchero’s.

“He was dropped off and just left there (at the hospital), which is a rather callous way to deal with someone who has life-threatening injuries, and demonstrates the nature of these people and how they regard human life,” Thompson said.

“We will be monitoring outlaw motorcycle gangs hard over the next few days to ensure that the community is safe.

“If you’re thinking about joining an outlaw motorcycle gang, think again. This person has now been left with life-changing injuries, and this is solely because he was a member.”

The man has been transferred to Royal Perth Hospital and is in a critical but stable condition.

To breaking news now and WA Police will investigate the death of a 36-year-old man, who is believed to have suffered from cardiac arrest while he was being restrained by five people, including two police officers.

WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch during a press conference on Friday.Credit: 9News Perth

WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said officers were alerted by the man’s employer that he had been “acting erratically” before going missing.

The man returned to his workplace around 2am on Thursday morning, where police detained him and took him to Newman Hospital under the Mental Health Act.

The man voluntarily admitted himself to hospital but several hours later police were informed he was damaging property within the hospital, including ripping off some of the internal doors.

The medical staff requested police assistance to help sedate him.

Blanch said he had watched the footage of the incident from body-worn cameras, and that two police officers, two medical staff and a security guard had been attempting to restrain the man to admit sedative, when he suffered a medical episode – likely a cardiac arrest.

“CPR was immediately commenced, but tragically, the male passed away after some time attempting to resuscitate him,” Blanch said.

“We have notified his next of kin and his extended family and they are no doubt suffering significant grief.

“Police are committed to conducting a full and thorough investigation. It will start with a criminal investigation to understand the cause, or the causes, of his death.”

A new road safety campaign has launched in WA this morning – Fatality Free Friday – urging drivers to take more care behind the wheel.

The Australian Road Safety Foundation has used clocks to represent how time stops for the families of the more than 1300 people who died on the roads nationally last year – 185 of them in WA.

Chairman and founder Russell White said he spoke with those families often, and their lives were never the same.

A survey revealed a shocking 69 per cent of all WA drivers admitted to dangerous behaviour on the roads.

On Friday, May 30, the Foundation is aiming for a day without a single road fatality and is urging everyone nationally to help make that happen.

The new campaign.

The following news will come as no surprise for those looking to, or dreaming of, buying a home in Perth.

Doing so has been labelled “severely unaffordable” in a new global study.

The latest edition of the Demographia International Housing Affordability report compared the median house price to the median household income – a measure it called the median multiple – in 95 housing markets across eight countries.

The study, by Chapman University in California, rated markets on a scale ranging from “affordable” (3.0 or less) to “impossibly unaffordable” (9.0 or more).

Perth was ranked the 14th most unaffordable city, with Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane ranking even higher – all four were labelled as “impossibly unaffordable”.

Perth recorded an 8.3, putting it well over the affordable range and just under the “impossible” category.

The search for a hoon driver who is accused of a burnout spree in front of a busy Perth school zone during peak hour will continue this morning.

The silver Holden commodore was filmed performing the burnouts in front of Belridge Secondary College on Gwendoline Drive in Beldon just before 8.30am on Thursday.

Resident Samantha Law told 9 News Perth it was “disgusting” and “embarrassing” behaviour, and that it was scary it happened on a street children thought was safe to cross.

Police impounded the car two hours after the incident but were unable to locate the driver.