By Andrew Starke
The Australian Hotels Association (AHA) NSW have launched a stinging attack on the police after revelations they have been manipulating assault figures in order to meet crime targets.
“This brings new meaning to the phrase lies, lies and (police) statistics,” AHA (NSW) CEO, Sally Fielke, told TheShout.
“These actions have had an especially devastating effect on hoteliers in the Newcastle area and it makes a mockery of police calls to extend Newcastle-style trading restrictions Statewide.
“There is now no way the public, or the industry, can accept the much publicized improvement in assault figures in Newcastle, quoted by the police, as being in any way credible or even vaguely accurate.”
However, head of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), Don Weatherburn, rejected the claim that the imposition of restrictions on licensed premises did not produce a fall in the number of assaults.
“It is true that there was a spike in rejected assaults in the Newcastle Local Area Command in 2009,” he said, adding that the body’s evaluation had covered the period April 2004 to March 2009, while the spike in rejected assaults occurred in April and June 2009.
“In other words, the spike in rejected assaults in Newcastle occurred after our evaluation of the effect of those trading restrictions,” he said. “Our evaluation of the Newcastle liquor license trading restrictions was not in any way affected by that spike.”
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