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Perth, |
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Gatecrashers wreck parties
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Gatecrashers attacked and injured partygoers at two surf clubs on Saturday night. The first incident was at Swanbourne-Nedlands Surf Life Saving Club at 9.10pm. The other was at City of Perth Surf Life Saving Club, in City Beach, close to midnight. Cottesloe police said a group of 14 to 16-year-olds tried gatecrashing a party in the courtyard of the Swanbourne club but were refused entry. They said the youths made abusive comments before throwing things over the courtyard fence. They included an umbrella pole which cut a 23-year-old woman's forehead. The woman went home because of her injury. Later a 16-year-old girl's birthday party at the City Beach club got out of hand, with drunken behaviour and fights and some 150 youths throwing bottles, police said. The mother of a 16-year-old guest said a group of uninvited teenagers and older youths had caused the trouble. In a letter to the POST (see page 2), she criticised police for using violence to disperse the party, as it "did not provide a good example to teenagers who are forming opinions about people in authority and how they use that authority". Wembley sergeant Mike Gough said: "Instead of parents complaining about police actions after the event, they should have been there before it got to the point where police had to be involved." He said the 16-year-olds were drinking unsupervised and anyone who disobeyed, after being told to leave, would have been forced out. Police used 20 officers and a dog to get people out of the club hall, and a melee developed. He said an officer used a pepper-spray when youths tried to pull him into the back of the police wagon, another officer got a blow to the head and a youth was bitten after trying to tackle the police dog. Nine boys and a girl were apprehended; half got written cautions, others got verbal cautions. |
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