By Ruza Zivkusic
ITwas business as usual over the festive season for local police as crime didn’t take a holiday.
December was busy as usual with no drop in numbers of domestic violence assault calls, Keilor Downs Police Sergeant Darren Anderson said.
“There were lots of people fighting and drink driving. We get domestic situations all the time and I don’t think that Christmas was any different,” Sgt Anderson said.
Although he was unable to provide numbers of domestic violence assault calls, Sgt Anderson said that the festive season was “excessively busy”.
Detective Senior Sergeant Fred Grove of Sunshine Police told Star most of the incidents during the holidays included unruly street behaviour.
“Most of it was alcohol and street related offences leading up to the fireworks on New Year’s Eve,” Det Sen Sgt Grove said.
A New Year’s Eve house party stabbing in Cairnlea has seen a 24-year-old Cairnlea man undergo surgery after being stabbed in the lower back by three other men.
The matter is still being investigated by the police.
“I don’t think that there’s much cooperation from the victim in relation to that. They’re refusing to assist the police with the inquiries,” Det Sen Sgt Grove said.
There was one road accident at the intersection of Arthur and Fox streets in St Albans in late December where a woman in her 60s died at the scene.
A 32-year-old woman who was driving the car that hit a tree was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a serious but stable condition.
Several bags of cash were taken from an armoured van just days before Christmas. The van was parked near the Bendigo Bank entrance to the Market Place Shopping Centre in Sunshine on 22 December when the theft took place.
Police set up an information van at the shopping centre in hope to receive any information from shoppers regarding the theft.
Members of the State Emergency Service (SES) in Keilor managed to spend more time with their families this season as the number of emergency calls dropped compared with last year because of the calmer weather conditions.
“During the month (of December) we’ve been out every second or third day for about a week and a half of it, when normally for the past years we’ve had jobs every single day leading up to several of weeks,” Keilor SES unit controller Brad Dalgleish said.
He said the number of jobs had dropped by 20 compared to the previous year.
But most of the recorded jobs for the second half of the last year were cars running into homes, Mr Dalgleish said.
The most recent incident includes a driver who was visiting a neighbour in Taylors Lakes and lost control of his car coming out of the driveway and ran into the neighbour’s bedroom, Mr Dalgleish said.
During the past six months Keilor SES members spent up to 1610 hours while attending 87 jobs in the area.
