Home sweet home

Maybe it could be blamed on an autumn equinox hang over or post-bonus-blues but whatever the reason, Burswood and its surrounds have been yielding an unusual concentration of muggings over the last fortnight.

Last weekend a man leaving Burswood Casino had a lucky break when he was robbed and hit in the face with a meat cleaver, and, 2 metal plates in his head and 19 stitches later, he lived to tell the tale.

Slightly luckier than him, although clearly unimpressed, one 19 y/o who decided to take the train home from Muggers' Paradise (Burswood Train Station), & was rolled, having his possessions extracted via threats with a meat cleaver.

Both attacks were described as particularly aggressive and strangely, the victims both said they expected the attacks would have continued if a "passer-by" had not 'disturbed' the group of armed men(must have been the Jean-Claude Van Dam of passers-by, let's hope he "passes-by" Muggers' Paradise fairly regularly).



The area in and around Burswood train station is characterized by run down squats, vacant land, and various semi-industrial premises and backs onto the Graham Farmer Freeway, the Burswood SuperDome's car park and is bordered by an interstate highway lined with cheap motels.

Though the land that close to the city should in theory be very valuable, and a lot of it has river frontage, there are few homes and effectively no real urban development to add scrutiny of the anti-social activities that go on there.

The police have historically called the high-density residential area east of Burswood Station, The Bronx, for it's high rates of robberies, domestics, raids, and the prevalence of drugs and users.

The housing in the neighbouring suburbs was originally 100% state housing commission-owned until almost the late '70s, and the resultant subcultures springing from that melting pot of disadvantage, restlessness and poverty, have suffered an unabridged detritus by crime and substance abuse.

Adjacent suburbs have had a string of similar attacks in this 'notorious' district of Perth, where a glut of drug houses have co-existed for too many decades with local working class disenfranchised youth, who it appears, may these days be zoning out to too many reruns of Iron Chef.

Needless to say the Magnet would by no means seem quite as objectionable as she does today if she had not lived up to her nickname last week - rescued by a "passer by,"(busy geezer that one) and saved by a pervasive attack of nausea that mysteriously swept over her otherwise determined mugger after some extended (scintillating) conversation, much fruitless displaying of empty pockets, cheery gesticulation, and a quick jog.