A group of fed-up fathers have started a night patrol to try to deter machete-wielding home invaders and thieves from preying on residents of their wealthy Melbourne suburb.
There are now more than two dozen dads who work in pairs to drive around Malvern, where they say almost everyone they know has been affected by home invasions and residents are living in fear.
Youth crime is at record highs in Melbourne, where African gang machete violence is rampant and earlier this month claimed the lives of two boys aged 15 and 12.
The night patrol was started earlier this year, and is now large enough to have a rotating roster in order to cover as many streets as possible, founder Tim McDonald told 10 News Plus.
“With the rate of the [home] invasions going on in this direct area, it simply got to the point where there was so much crime going on we felt we needed to have eyes on the streets,” he said.
“We’ll either just discreetly and slowly roll through the streets looking up and down footpaths … or some people like to just park up at an intersection and turn the lights off and just wait to see if they can see anything.
“We’re not trained to do this, we don’t really have any specific techniques or tactics. But when we do see any suspicious behaviour, and it does happen, we’ll either report it and or do something to deter whoever it is to bugger off.”
Mr McDonald said statistics showing a spike in crime were just the “tip of the iceberg”, and that there were many more attempted home invasions in Malvern that either go unreported or unnoticed by residents.
Another night patrol member, father-of-two Chris who said he had been the victim of a home invasion himself, said the police were “fed-up” too due to teenage criminals being repeatedly released on bail by the courts, and took aim at Premier Jacinta Allan’s machete bins.
“I’m a bit disappointed at how the state’s been handling it, like they’ve got these machete bins outside a police station, how many are you actually expecting to receive?” he asked.
“I’d love to see more police, we’ve got a police station up the road, it’s closed during the night time. I’d love to see the magistrates being able to put these people behind bars where they should be.”
Mr McDonald agreed that more police presence was needed, saying the night patrol dads “don’t want to be doing this”.
“We’re probably putting ourselves in danger, and getting up at 2.30am it’s not something we’re proud of doing, not something we want to be doing and it’s not sustainable,” he said.
According to the most recent data by the Crime Statistics Agency (CSA), for the year to March 31 this year, youth crime is at the highest levels ever recorded electronically and up 17.9%, criminal offences are up 17.1%, with the overall crime rate up 15.2% year-on-year.
The night patrol comes after a neighbourhood watch group in Brisbane’s south swelled to 3,000 members in response to rampant break-ins, home invasions and robberies carried out by machete-wielding teenagers.
Header image: Left, a machete-wielding African teen in Melbourne. Right, two of the dads about to start a patrol (10 News Plus).
