Bar Beach Thief Believed to Be Targeting Elderly Charged

BY ISABEL EVERETT 

A 43-year-old Bar Beach man has been arrested on parole, charged with a number of aggravated break and enter offences, believed to be targeting elderly people. 

Investigations into break and enter offences by Newcastle City Target Action Group has resulted in the arrest of the man, who has been refused bail to face court in May 2020.

Property including cash, jewellery, cameras and postcards have been seized, which police believe has been stolen in recent months. 

Anyone able to identify the owners of the items are being urged to ring police on 02 49266581 and quote event number E73034130. 

Man off to Court after Committing Indecent Acts in front of Boy at a Newcastle Beach

BY JESSICA ROUSE

A man will face Newcastle Local Court today, charged for allegedly committing act of indecency at Bar Beach.

Police say between Thursday January 18 and yesterday (Monday January 22), a 12-year-old boy went to the beach on Memorial Drive in Newcastle on several occasions with a family member.

The boy allegedly witnessed a man commit two acts of indecency while using the public change rooms.

The 12-year-old then saw the same man on the beach on yesterday at about 1pm and reported the incidents to lifeguards.

Newcastle City LAC officers attended and arrested the 75-year-old man.

He was taken to Newcastle Police Station where he was charged with two counts of commit act of indecency with person under 16 years and refused bail.

Government Questioned Over Social Housing Sale

BY GARY-JON LYSAGHT

The State Government is being called on to give assurances to residents of a social housing complex in Bar Beach after the properties were sold from underneath them.

Tania Mihailuk [Image Source: Jonathan Ng, via The Daily Telegraph].

The Government is yet to comment on where the money raised from the sale will go, or who the properties are being sold to.

The decision comes shortly after residents, who are mostly pensioners, were given assurances by the Government that they had secure housing for at least the next decade.

Shadow Social Housing minister Tania Mihailuk visited affected residents with Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp on Friday and expressed concern as to where these residents will be going in the future.

"They haven't been told where they're going at all, they've just been given mixed messages," she said.

"To be told one day they can stay for ten years, next to be told they're being evicted."

One of the biggest concerns for Labor is what the potential benefit for the sale will be, and whether or not it will benefit everyone.

Tania Mihailuk has asked, "are the community of Newcastle going to gain from new social, affordable housing, or is this simply going to be again going to be given out to developers and investors to make some money"?

Mihailuk has expressed particular concern over the overall way the news was broken to the residents, saying it was severely mismanaged.

"The Government should have ensured that they were being looked after, that they were councilled, given advice, assistance," she said

"Before you give an eviction notice you actually talk to them [the residents] abut alternative accommodation and where they can go."