Justice, served

Well, pleasant news today from the team at the WA Police Rail Unit. I’ve had word that the indigenous Australian male who assaulted me last year at Burswood Station without provocation, after shouting racial abuse at old Asian ladies leaving the casino, was convicted late last month.

For those who don’t remember the story, here’s what I wrote at the time:

It was the outcome of being assaulted, without provocation, by an indigenous Australian male, who in a twist of irony was shouting very offensive racial slogans and phrases at people of different races, predominately of Asian and Japanese origin who were going about their business walking to and from Burswood Station this evening.

To assist Railway Security and at their request until Patrol arrived I attempted to explain to him that Railway Security had been called, and it was in his best interests to calm down and take a seat until the train arrived. He didn’t take too kindly to this polite request, and behaved like a mad man for about 5-10 min, before he decided to run straight up to me.

Before I had time to react, I was on my back having been knocked to the ground. Unknown to me, a helpful bystander and witness informed me I was bleeding significantly and luckily had some tissues in her handbag. Thankfully, I had a well-padded backpack so this acted as a cushion to protect me from any cranial damage injuries from landing at force onto concrete.

In what can only be described as another strange part of the story, I was later advised by the Police in attendance that the male who assaulted me was the same person who was ejected from the Burswood complex not 15-20min prior for a very similar offence.

According to the letter of evidence supplied, the split was 0.5cm deep and 1.5cm long. It was through the Vermilion border, but they did consider it right on the clinical borderline between stitches and plastics.

The end result is that he was convicted at a hearing, and received 6 months with no parole for Assault occasioning bodily harm. The hearing also covered a number of other charges against him, the details I didn’t wish to enquire about.

The six months is not to be served concurrently, so it’s on top of everything else he’s been convicted of.

And another interesting fact, once they had identified and finally caught up with my assailant according to the officer handling my case – they did so whilst he was in custody and appearing at the Perth Magistrates Court on other unrelated matters. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

While it may take a little time for cases to come to their conclusion and offenders brought to account, this blight on society has been brought to account for his crimes, and will have a stack of time to think about where his life has gone.

The justice system works.

Ed’s note: There was a comment on this article from a person who didn’t provide a name/pseudonym or real email address, which I chooe not to publish. The comment suggested that referring to the race of the guilty party wasn’t necessary. The mentioning of the offender’s race is important to the incident, in the context of the situational irony that the offender as a member of a racial/ethnic group who oft consider themselves a minority abused by society on account of their race, would see fit to visit the same abuse they complain about on someone who also was a member of a specific ethnic origin. I kind of hoped that didn’t need to be spelt out.