Hate crime Sydney: Five thugs bash gay man outside Universal nightclub on Oxford street

A young gay artist who was bashed unconscious by five thugs in a suspected ‘hate crime‘ feared the group of homophobes ‘wanted to kill’ him.

Aaron, 33, says he was kicked, punched and stomped on while trying to avoid an altercation with the group of unknown men outside Universal nightclub on Sydney‘s Oxford Street at around 4am on June 26.

He was rushed to hospital where he later woke up not knowing where he was, bloodied, with a broken nose and his eyes swollen shut.

NSW Police have launched a major public appeal to track down the violent men, releasing a series of images and CCTV footage of the five wanted over the brutal attack. 

Aaron spoke to Nine News on Thursday, revealing the terrifying ordeal that saw him approached by a man hurling gay slurs before the thugs chased him down the street. 

‘They wanted to kill me, literally,’ he said. ‘They stomped on my head and were punching me in the face, kicking me on the ground when I was unconscious.’

‘The guy who talked to me called me a f****t. I knew he wanted to fight. I tried to cross the road, they chased me, and the rest I don’t remember.

‘I woke up in hospital, covered in blood. I panicked, screaming, not knowing where I was.’

There has been an outpouring of support for the 33-year-old in the community, with Aaron demanding the full weight of the law come down on the thugs.  

‘Violence will never be the answer. These guys need to know there are consequences,’ he added.

‘I’m grateful to be alive, but no one should have to go through this.’ 

Aaron believes he is fortunate to be alive, sharing horrific images from his hospital bed that show the extent of the bashing.

He has already had surgery on his nose and will require further operations on his gums and teeth – with medical bills already surpassing $10,000.

NSW Police have released new footage showing a group of men wanted in relation to the suspected hate crime near the nightclub. 

The group appear to be of varying ethnicities, with one pictured outside the nightclub shirtless with a bum bag around his chest.

Anyone with any information on the identities on the group or who was at the Universal nightclub at the time of the bashing are being urged to contact police.

Earlier this week, Aaron posted a series of pictures to his social media accounts revealing he had suffered a serious concussion due to the inflammation around his brain and ears.

‘I hold my hand on my heart when I say I wouldn’t wish this on anyone to go through, I’ve wanted to hide and this is so big for me to share, it’s taken a lot of energy, building up the strength to post and pray the public, can bring justice in a healthy/moral manner,’ he wrote.

‘I’II have a $10,000 dental bill, am having on going physio/chiro, counselling, doctor appointments and dentist as result of being victim of hate crime.

‘Please help, share and repost this post so I and others can put a stop to this unnecessary violence!’

Aaron has since been inundated with support from followers as friends set up an online fundraiser for the man they described as a beautiful soul.

‘I thought I’d try to get some justice and help someone I care about,’ Alejandro Bareno wrote.

‘I have created this page to help Aaron get the justice he deserves after the disgusting attack. It is unbelievable and so sad that these acts are still happening; let’s show those people that in moments like this, we all come together.’

‘He had a broken nose, his eyes bashed and mouth and teeth displaced. 

‘No one should be a victim of hate crime against the peaceful and cheerful LGTBQIA+ community. Please help me to share and repost this page so we can put a stop to this awful acts of violence against our community.’

Dark secrets behind gay hate murders of 23 men at Sydney’s beaches may be unlocked as killer of brilliant American student pushed off cliff 30 years ago utters stunning last minute confession

A 50-year-old man’s shock last minute confession saying he was ‘guilty, guilty, guilty’ in court this week to the 1988 murder of a US maths student has given police fresh hope of unlocking up to 23 ‘gay hate’ killings.

Scott Phillip White declared his guilt in a split second decision at a pre-trial hearing, alarming his lawyers who made an unsuccessful attempt to have the plea reversed.

He now awaits sentencing for pushing 27-year-old Scott Johnson off a cliff at Manly’s North Head, the brilliant PhD graduate’s body found on the rocks below on December 10, 1988.

White apologised to his barrister Belinda Rigg, saying he appreciated her efforts ‘but I can’t handle it’ and Justice Helen Wilson convicted him.

Scott Johnson had left his clothes neatly folded at the top of Blue Fish Point, and despite a bungled police finding the death was a suicide, his California-based brother Steve, never believed it and pursued the case for three decades.

Steve Johnson discovered that Blue Fish Point, like the scene of other murders in the 1970s and 1980s, was a known as a beat among Sydney’s gay community. 

Her surmised that that Scott ‘took off his clothes, laid down, and so somebody probably walked up to Scott while he was there and proposed sex, proposed something’.

It was Mr Johnson’s determination that in part propelled police to re-examine Scott’s death, after a third inquest into his death finding he was likely murdered and leading detectives to arrest White.

From the beginning  of the 1970s to the end of the 1980s, up to 88 gay men in Sydney’s east and metro areas were documented to have disappeared in suspicious circumstances, or were the victims of murders.

Men were found slain in parks, homes or washed up on the rocks at the bottom of Sydney clifftops. 

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Tony Crandell said after White’s arrest in 2020 when asked if if it gave him hope of making future arrests in similar unsolved cases,  ‘My word it does’.

‘There are other cases that are around … all of the beats … that we attribute to gay hate crime have not been solved,’  he said.

‘I’m very hopeful that cases like this reverberate through the community and we can get more information – that’s what we need, we need more information in order to pursue these cases. 

 ”They are not closed, they are not frozen, we will work on them and anybody out there who committed such offences should be looking over their shoulder.

‘Ross Warren (and) John Russell are two cases that come to mind.’

WIN TV newsreader Ross Warren and Bondi barman John Allan Russell are believed to have been thrown off the Bondi-Tamarama clifftops in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs in 1989.

Ross Warren, 25, is believed to have died violently at the hands of one of the gangs operating in the area.

One gang was called The Bondi Boys, also known as The Part Time Killers (PTK), with up to 30 members aged 15 to 18 who hung out at night on the Bondi-Tamarama walk near Marks Park.

The other was loosely known as the Tamarama Gang, with three members aged 16 to 17, who met up at night on the Bondi-Tamarama walk.

Around 2.15am on Sunday, July 22, 1989, Ross Warren was seen driving his Nissan Pulsar off towards Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

The handsome newsreader was regarded as a talent at WIN Television and destined for a glittering career.

He didn’t flaunt his sexuality, and was likely headed for what he thought would be a discreet encounter, but which would go horribly wrong.

Mr Warren did not return to the friend’s house in Sydney where he was staying in mid-1989, nor did he show up at WIN Television studios in Wollongong to go on air.

His body was never found, but his keys were located on the rocks below Marks Park.

On November 23, 1989, 31-year-old John Allan Russell’s body was discovered at the base of the South Bondi cliff beneath Marks Park.

It is believed he was thrown from the cliff, and rusted iron water pipes possibly used as bars to beat him with were found near his body.

Similar things were going on at the clifftops which flank the harbour, and in city parks which continued as clandestine meeting spots even after homosexuality was decriminalised in New South Wales in 1984. 

 In 1985, 27-year-old French national Giles Mattaini was living in Bondi.

He was last seen walking along the coastal walking track at Tamarama on September 15 that year by a neighbour; he was not reported missing until 2002.

In January 1987, martial arts expert Raymond Keam was bashed to death at Alison Park, Randwick, and in December 1988, William Allen was bashed to death at Alexandria Park, Alexandria. 

Cyril Olsen, 64, was bashed at Rushcutters Bay in the early hours of August 22, 1992 before being pushed into the water and drowned.  

In the inner-western suburb of Alexandria, a gang of up to 15 members aged between 15 and 18 years old was operating.

Known as the Alexandria Gang or Alexandria Eight, they met at their local park at night, as was the case in 1990 when a man called Richard Johnson was lured there to the toilet block by a man posing via a telephone call as person wanting to meet up for a tryst.

As Johnson parked his car and walked over to the toilet block in search of his mystery hook-up, the group of teenage boys ran towards him and knocked him to the ground with one blow.

The boys took turns punching and kicking his head and body, until he died where he lay.

AC/DC’s former manager Crispin Dye was bashed to death after drinking with friends on a night out in Darlinghurst and Surry Hills on December 23, 1993.

Witnesses reported seeing three young men standing over Mr Dye’s unconscious body after he was brutally bashed before they fled the scene with his wallet.

Most of the murders became cold cases, although one, of Thai student Kritchikorn Rattanajaturathaporn, was solved.

In July, 1990, Mr Rattanajaturathaporn’s bloodied and battered body was found wedged in the rocks at the bottom of the Marks Parks sea cliff at South Bondi.

Police later determined three youths had found him and his companion, Jeffrey Sullivan, sitting on the lookout wall at nearby Mackenzie’s Point.

The youths threatened the two men, then set upon them, hitting them, kicking them and beating them with a claw hammer and a baton, leaving Mr Sullivan semiconscious.

The youths chased Mr Rattanajurathaporn along the clifftop walkway, where he either fell to his death or was pushed over.

His cause of death was either from drowning or from his injuries, which included extensive lacerations, bruising, skull and spinal fractures and brain damage. 

Because of Mr Johnson’s eye-witnessing the killing, three youths were eventually convicted of murder and each sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Strike Force Parabell was formed and in 2018 it delivered a report of its investigation into 88 gay and lesbian hate crimes, which was tabled in NSW Parliament.

The report revealed chilling details  about those carrying out the attacks – who were mainly men, but occasionally included women or teenage girls – who saw isolated and dark gay beats as the perfect place to attack.

The gangs ‘would move around from beat to beat’ and their motivation to attack might simply have been to obtain money.

‘Predatory gangs would go up and assault victims, looking to get $10, $20 or $30 to buy some alcohol and have a good night out,’ a former NSW Police detective said.

Other attackers wanted to portray themselves as ‘alpha males’, some simply ‘hated’ gays and others had been molested as children, and struggled to differentiate between paedophiles and gay men.

At the time, police often brushed off the deaths of gay men as suicides, the lack of investigation more recently described by former NSW Police Minister David Elliott as ‘offensive’.

‘It was offensive because of the motive behind the crime,’ Mr Elliott said.

‘It was offensive because it was at a time when people were slightly dismissive of hate crimes, and were too easy to try to make excuses or to move on.

‘Well, we don’t do that anymore.’

Former NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said in 2020 the police force was now determined to right these wrongs.

‘I think in any age of policing police made mistakes, but indeed there are good police throughout New South Wales’ history who solved difficult crimes,’ Mr Fuller said.

‘I do think the plight of young gay men particularly in Sydney, but also all around the world, was a difficult one.

‘Not only were they let down by police but they were let down by the community.

‘Can I just impress on the community – particularly those victim’s families out there – whenever we get fresh information, we will commence an investigation into their death.

‘Lots of victims families are often not looking to blame anyone, they are just looking for answers.

‘I think it’s reasonable that we continue to do whatever we can to solve those crimes.’