Heavy metal: Police wanding trial seizes deadly arsenal from Gold Coast streets
Swords, meat cleavers, ornamental letter openers and tomahawks are among a cache of weapons seized by police from people heading into Gold Coast party zones during the past 12 months under the state’s first trial of metal detecting wands to combat escalating knife crime.
Acting Superintendent Rhys Wildman has hailed the success of a wanting trial to reduce knife crime on the Gold Coast. (File image).
The trial, which wrapped up this week, will now be used to determine whether the State Government will introduce new legislation to expand the use of metal detectors by police across the state.
Police today revealed that in the past year, 11,775 people had been searched for weapons using the metal detecting wands in the Gold Coast’s safe night precincts at Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach.
A total of 133 weapons had been seized and 106 offenders charged with weapons offences.
As well as weapons offences, the searches also enabled police to make 336 arrests on a total of 467 charges.
Southeast region police Acting Assistant Commissioner Rhys Wildman said the flow-on effect of the police random metal detecting scans by police contributed to increased safety and plummeting rates of weapons and other offences in the two areas.
In Surfers Paradise, there was a 100 per cent reduction in armed hold ups and 850 per cent drop in wounding offences. Only two wounding incidents had occurred in the safe night precincts in the past 12 months, he said.
“This promotes the importance of what we are trying to achieve in maintain the community safety element here on the Gold Coast,” Wildman said.
The wanding trial was launched in late April last year following a spate of fatal stabbings on the Gold Coast, including the murder of 17-year-old Jack Beasley in December 2019 while he was on a night out with friends.
Brett and Belinda Beasley subsequently launched the Jack Beasley Foundation to lobby for the trial and tougher penalties for knife crimes.
Brett Beasley today said the police action in the safe night precincts showed knife crime could be reduced.
“These figures are absolutely fantastic,” Beasley said.
“These devices (metal detecting wands) are saving lives. It’s as simple as that.”
Wildman said police would continue using the wands in the safe night precincts despite the end of the trial.
In March, random metal detection was expanded to around the clock checks in the two party zones, which would remain in place until there was potential new legislation introduced.
