Donald Bruce Mackay was an Australian businessman and anti-drug campaigner. He disappeared in 1977, but his body has never been found. In 1986, James Bazley was convicted for his murder.
The Claremont serial killings is the name given by the media to a case involving the disappearance of an Australian woman, aged 18, and the killings of two others, aged 23 and 27, in 1996–1997. After attending night spots in Claremont, Perth, Western Australia, all three women disappeared in similar circumstances leading police to suspect that an unidentified serial killer was the offender. The case was described as the state's biggest, longest running, and most expensive investigation.
The backpacker murders were a spate of serial killings that took place in New South Wales, Australia, between 1989 and 1993, committed by Ivan Milat. The bodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discovered partially buried in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south-west of the New South Wales town of Berrima. Five of the victims were foreign backpackers and two were Australians from Melbourne. Milat was convicted of the murders on 27 July 1996 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, as well as 18 years without parole. He died in prison on 27 October 2019, having never confessed to the murders for which he was convicted.
This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.
In Australia, the term beat is used to refer to an area frequented by gay men, where sexual acts occur. This use of the word parodies the beat walked by a police officer or a prostitute. Most commonly, public toilets, parks, and nightclubs are used as beats, though sometimes suburban car parks become beats after nightfall. Sex researchers have found that a considerable proportion of men who use "beats" are men who have sex with men (MSMs) rather than gay-identifying. This is possibly because, while gay men have a plethora of venues for meeting legitimately, MSMs – who are often closeted – may not wish to risk being observed in gay venues.
George Ian Ogilvie Duncan was an Australian law lecturer at the University of Adelaide who drowned in 1972 after being thrown into the River Torrens by a group of men believed to be police officers. Public outrage generated by the murder became the trigger for homosexual law reform which led to South Australia becoming the first Australian state to decriminalise homosexuality.
Virginia Anne Chadwick was an Australian politician. She was a Liberal Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1978 to 1999. She was the first NSW female Minister for Education; the first female President of the New South Wales Legislative Council; and Chair and CEO of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
The Comanchero Motorcycle Club is an outlaw motorcycle gang in Australia and South East Asia. The Comancheros are participants in the United Motorcycle Council of NSW, which convened a conference in 2009 to address legislation aimed against the "bikie" clubs, their poor public image in the wake of several violent clashes and ongoing biker wars, and defusing deadly feuds such as the Comancheros' battles with the Hells Angels. The sincerity of these efforts to defend the battered image of the clubs has been met with skepticism.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in the Australian state of New South Wales have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual individuals and couples. LGBTQ rights in New South Wales enjoy bipartisan support.
Ivan Robert Marko Milat, commonly referred to in media as the Backpacker Murderer, was an Australian serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed and murdered two men and five women in New South Wales between 1989 and 1992. His modus operandi was to approach backpackers along the Hume Highway under the guise of providing them transport to areas of southern New South Wales, then take his victims into the Belanglo State Forest where he would incapacitate and murder them. Milat is also suspected of having committed many other similar offences around Australia.
The history of violence against LGBT people in the United Kingdom is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex individuals (LGBTQI), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United Kingdom. Those targeted by such violence are perceived to violate heteronormative rules and religious beliefs and contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBTQI may also be targeted.
The history of violence against LGBTQ people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals, legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative standards and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBTQ may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common.
Benjamin Roberts-Smith is an Australian former soldier who, in a civil defamation trial in 2023 he initiated in the Federal Court of Australia, was found to have committed war crimes in Afghanistan during 2009, 2010 and 2012. An appeal to a Full Court of the Federal Court, comprising three judges, commenced on 5 February 2024.
William Tyrrell is an Australian boy who disappeared at the age of three from Kendall, New South Wales, on 12 September 2014. He had been playing at his foster grandmother's house with his sister, and was wearing a Spider-Man suit at the time of his disappearance. For the first seven years of the investigation, Tyrrell was believed to have been abducted. On 12 September 2016, a reward of A$1 million was offered for the recovery of Tyrrell and did not require the arrest, charging or conviction of any person or persons.
Matthew John Leveson was an Australian man who was last seen leaving a Sydney nightclub on 23 September 2007. He was reported missing by his family after he failed to show up to work. On 27 September, his car was found dumped at Waratah Park Reserve in Sutherland; evidence suggested he did not park it there and police believed he had "met with foul play". In August 2008, Leveson's boyfriend, Michael Atkins, was arrested and charged with murder. In October 2009, Atkins was acquitted of murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, following a four-week trial.
Scott Russell Johnson was an American university student who was killed in Australia in 1988. Initially treated by police as a suicide, a coroner's inquest in 2017 resulted in finding "[he] died as a result of a gay-hate attack". In May 2020, Scott White, an Australian man, was arrested and charged and in January 2022, convicted in the murder of Johnson, citing homophobia as his motivation.
The gay gang murders are a series of suspected anti-LGBT hate crimes perpetrated by large gangs of youths in Sydney, between 1970 and 2010, with most occurring in 1989 and 1990. The majority of these occurred at local gay beats, and were known to the police as locations where gangs of teenagers targeted homosexuals. In particular, many deaths are associated with the cliffs of Marks Park, Tamarama, where the victims would allegedly be thrown or herded off the cliffs to their deaths. As many as 88 gay men were murdered by these groups in the period, with many of the deaths unreported, considered accidents or suicides at the time.
The Gay and Lesbian Teachers and Students Association (GaLTaS) was an Australian LGBT organisation active from 1991 to 1998 that was established during a wave of gay gang murders, to publicise widespread problems of anti-gay bullying and violence in Australian schools, as well as to offer support and a path to redress for its victims. It was founded by two Committee members of the New South Wales Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby: gay activist Derek Williams, a New Zealand born teacher at Randwick Boys High School and Jennifer Glass, an 18-year-old lesbian New South Wales high school student. Williams was subsequently six times re-elected its male co-convenor, and after the resignation of Jennifer Glass, teacher Jacqui Griffin became female co-convenor for the major part of GaLTaS' significant activism. Her GaLTaS SchoolWatch Report, and the association's landmark legal cases representing LGBT+ students and teachers led to changes in government policy that had far-reaching and longlasting impact. Integral to GaLTaS' success was the activism of its student members, and its dialogue with unions, politicians, police, parents, and parent organisations PFLAG and Parents and Citizens (P&C).
