By GEORGIA WESTGARTH and CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
IS THE City of Casey hosting a youth crime wave that’s spreading across Melbourne?
The region’s top cop Superintendent Paul Hollowood said that a rising tide of car thefts by young criminal networks was a “driving force” behind the city’s soaring crime rate which is up more than 15 per cent on a per capita basis in the past year.
This comes as the latest crime figures reveal that metropolitan Melbourne experienced a 12.4 per cent increase in offences for the year ending 31 March.
Narre Warren Detective Senior Sergeant Darron Hedge said the patterns of crime Casey is experiencing from street robberies to car thefts and home invasions are something he can’t explain. “This area is pretty much constant with incidences, whether its violence or volume crime such as burglaries and car thefts. It’s all the time,” Sen Sgt Hedge said.
The crime clock illustration, below, shows how criminals struck in one weekend between Friday 10 June and Sunday 12 June.
In one June weekend in Casey a father and son opened the front door to their home to be confronted by an intruder, who escaped over their back fence – leaving behind a screwdriver.
Hours later police suspect thieves crawled in to avoid a security sensor at a business in Narre Warren South where cash and a safe was stolen.
In that same weekend a family’s boat, which had sat on its trailer on their front lawn for almost a year, was set on fire.
Residents were alerted to the blaze once they heard a crackling sound coming from their front window.
And just hours before that two young males from a pack of four decided to steal two slabs of Jack Daniels from Cranbourne’s Trios Sports Club cellar when staff weren’t looking.
Sen Sgt Darron Hedge said that’s just a “regular weekend” for Casey cops.
“That weekend (10-12 June) is nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.
According to the 12-month police statistics released on 16 June, weapons and explosives offences in Casey rose 60 per cent, in raw figures, up from 513 to 800.
Other sharply-rising categories of offences included drugs, burglaries, breach of orders, robbery, arson and stalking and harassment.
Family violence continued to rise, increasing by 9.2 per cent on a per capita basis.
And the highest crime rises occurred in Endeavour Hills (44.9 per cent), Doveton (21.9 per cent) and Cranbourne (21.2 per cent).
Supt Hollowood, who oversees the southern region, said the phenomenon was youth-based “mission” offending but not necessarily Apex Gang related.
The missions of the criminals were to steal a certain type of high-end vehicle, sourced either through carjacking or a home invasion, for example.
“The thought that someone can suddenly invade us in our home. It’s probably people’s worst fears,” he said.
Supt Hollowood said car thefts were often linked to several further serious offences such as stealing car keys during burglaries.
Others included putting false number plates on stolen cars, petrol drive-offs, evading police during pursuits and then setting cars on fire to dispose of them.
“What we’re seeing is a different method of offending by youth. It’s repeat offending. It involves a lot more violence than previously, but not associated with that original Apex group.
“Many of these youth are networked differently, through social media. A lot have no prior offending either.”
Car-jackings were “virtually unheard of” 20 years ago but are now becoming more “commonplace”, Supt Hollowood said.
Casey council resolved on 21 June to write to Police Minister Lisa Neville and Victoria Police over concerns about crime rates and under-resourced policing.
It will also seek an annual crime-issues conference with Casey’s police inspector and senior officers at each Casey police station.
But Supt Hollowood said talk of less police resources in Casey was a “nonsense”. Most uniformed police stations had a “minimal” number of staff but with “several resources coming from outside”.
Outside resources included Air Wing patrols, nightly patrols in Casey by Operations Response Unit and the Canine Unit.
“We know that through the police activity, we started the Tense Taskforce to focus on youth offending in the Dandenong area and made well over 100 arrests.”
Anyone who has been a victim of Casey’s crime surge is asked to contact Star News to tell their story at dailyeditor@starnewsgroup.com.au.
Police are urging anyone with information about these incidents to contact Narre Warren police station on 9705 3111.
