BEACH PARTIES ANNOY RESIDENT

Cable Beach. Phot by Nachoman-au

GEOFF VIVIAN

Four months after an alleged sexual assault during a party at Broome’s Cable Beach, Police say beach parties can be difficult to police.

Senior Sergeant Dave Rudd said parties were often held on beaches, shire land, private property or native title land.

“I think the people who organise them know in advance what they are doing,” he said. “But the people who attend quite often don’t know until the day or even the afternoon that it’s happening, it’s location. Obviously they do that intentinally to disrupt rangers and police attending.

“We have attended them previously and stopped them before they got into full swing. There have been some serious incidents that have occurred, a few of them still under investigation.”

He spoke after Broome resident Jan Lewis asked Broome Shire Council a question at Public question time.

“I’m concerned about the noise,” she said. “The music is so loud that even four kilometres away at my house I could hear it. These parties mostly last over the weekend so not just an afternoon or an evening but sometimes the next day as well. There’s a fire, there’s lots of kids, partying, staggering home, falling alseep on the beach where they are in danger of being run over.”

Development Service director Keith Williams told her Shire Rangers could attend and request that noise is mitigated but had no powers to confiscate sound equipment.

He said there was no approval required for these gatherings, and suggested Ms Lewis call the police if there was illegal activity such as public drinking, drug use or public nuisance such as loud music.