Five Perth teenagers who used gay dating app Grindr to lure five gay men to nighttime meetings in a secluded park where they were robbed and violently assaulted have been jailed.
On Wednesday Perth’s Children’s Court heard that the assaults were part of a pre-meditated scheme where the group of boys aged between 15 and 17 years of age posed on the dating app looking to meet men for intimate encounters.
The teenagers can not be publicly identified because they were under 18 years of age at the time of the offences. After making contact with five different victims they then met the men armed with a machete, a kitchen knife, a metal pole, a taser, pepper spray and a crowbar.
They lured their victims to three different parks in Perth’s southern suburbs on the evening of September 18th 2024.
Readers are advised that this report has details of physical assault. Reader discretion is advised.
Judge Wendy Hughes said she was prepared to accept that the five boys motivation for committing the assaults was vigilantism, ““as opposed to an entrenched hatred to the gay community”. Her comments reported by The West Australian.
“This was not a hate crime, this was an act of vigilantism.” Judge Hughes said.
The judge said it did not make any different to the seriousness of the offences. “Any form of vigilantism cannot be tolerated in our community,” she said.
Judge Hughes said the boys held a misconception that gay men were “inherently deviant and have a sexual interest in children.”
“At the end of the day these victims were targeted by virtue of being homosexual men. What you did was wrong and it can never ever be justified,” she said.
“It’s really difficult to believe that given your young ages that you would be so cruel to a human being.” the judge said to the boys before handing down sentences.
She noted that when conversing with four out of their five victims the boys had presented themselves as being over eighteen years of age during the online conversations, while a fifth man was originally told he was chatting to someone who was 24 years old, but he continued the conversation after the boys had told him they were fifteen years old.
The boys were sentenced to juvenile detention with sentences ranging from 26 months; 22 months; 19 months; and two sentences of 18 months.
The group was tracked down by police after they posted footage of the attacks to Instagram. The five boys sentenced on Wednesday had pleaded guilty to a range of charges including unlawful wounding, assault causing bodily harm, aggravated armed robbery, threat with intent, distribution of an intimate image and criminal damage.
Two co-accused are yet to face court, one of which has pleaded not guilty to their charges.
Court hears details of the attacks
The court was told the one of the teenagers had sent text messages to his friends inviting them to “come catch paedos” on the night of the attacks.
They then created profiles on Grindr and began interacting with men using the dating app. One of the victims who was 30 years old, pulled up in his car to South Lake oval where he had arranged a meeting. Shortly after he got out his car he was et upon by the teenagers who were wearing ski masks to cover their faces.
The man was hit in the back of his head with a metal pole, pepper sprayed, tasered in the back and then punched in the face. One of the boys recorded the assault on his mobile phone.
When he tried to escape, running across the oval screaming for help, he was chased down by the boys who jumped on the back of his head, and kicked him in the ribs and in the face, causing him to loose two teeth.
They teens pulled him to his feet and ordered him to admit he was a pedophile. When he refused one of the teens threated him saying, “Keep yelling for help c…, I swear to God I will drown you in this f…ing bush”.
A knife was then held to his throat and the boys threated to stab him. They then dragged him to basketball courts that were 100 metres away and stole his mobile phone. The man tried to flee the group but was unable to get away. Again the teenagers stomped on his head, tasered his genitals and forced him to strip naked.
They then told the victim to “go for run” before resuming chasing him. The man managed to get away from the group by hiding in a nearby swamp where he remained until the group left. He later passed out at the side of the swamp, when he awoke there was a pool of blood where he had been laying.
A short time later around 8pm a second assault occurred when a man in his 20s arrived at Anning Park by bicycle. He was expecting to meet a man in his 20s who he’d been chatting to on Grindr.
After he arrived he was surrounded by a group who emerged out of the darkness. He was surrounded and struck from behind. He tried to run away from the group but was hit by a slow moving car as he ran across the road. The group then dragged him back into the park where he was hit with a pole.
The man has no memory of the next 30 minutes of the attack, but footage taken by the teenagers on their mobile phone shows him incoherently trying to speak. He was struck on the head and the face, had a taser was held to his genitals but not discharged. The man was then robbed by the group.
A third assault occurred shortly before 1am the following morning when a man arrived at Stillwater Gardens in South Lake under the belief he was meeting an eighteen-year-old.
He saw a teenager standing in the dark and the group quickly ran towards him dragging him from the road and attacking him. He was kicked and punched by the group who were still armed with the machete, crowbar and pepper spray. He suffered welts to his back and had a chunk of skin missing from his elbow.
A fourth victim who was met by the group in Hamilton Hill later in the morning has no memory of his sustained attack. The court heard he bashed until he lost consciousness. They boys later used a boulder to smash his car’s windscreen, and they stole his keys and phone.
A fifth victim, aged 33, managed to escape from the group after he ran back to his car after seeing the group. The teens threw rocks at his car as he drove away.
Do you need some support?
If you are struggling with anxiety or depression, support and counselling are available from:
QLife: 1800 184 527 / qlife.org.au (Webchat 3pm – midnight)
QLife are a counselling and referral service for LGBTQIA+ people.
DISCHARGED: info@discharged.org.au / discharged.org.au
Discharged is a trans-led support service with peer support groups for trans and gender diverse folks.
Lifeline: 13 11 14 / lifeline.org.au
Beyondblue: 1300 22 4636 / www.beyondblue.org.au
