Transcript
Paige (0:00)
Hey, this is Paige from Giggly Squad and this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Nordstrom is here to help you dress in a way that feels totally you with the best spring styles from boho dresses and matching sets to must have bags and sneakers. Discover thousands of items from lots of your favorite brands like Mango Reformation, Veronica Beard and Farm Rio. It's easy too, with free shipping and returns in store order, pickup and more. Shop today in stores and@nordstrom.com Imagine waking.
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Paige (1:19)
Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers, for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. This episode was originally released on Casefile's Patreon, Apple Premium and Spotify Premium feeds. As an early bonus for our paid subscribers, these episodes are designed to be slightly shorter, allowing us to cover a broader range of cases. To receive these episodes early and ad free, you can support Casefile on your preferred platform. April 25, 1999 had been a leisurely Sunday for 47 year old David Campbell and his partner of 15 years, 45 year old Keith Hibbins. The pair lived in the inner Melbourne suburb of Collingwood in a house they designed together. Keith was an architect while David was a landscaper and they'd combined their skills to create the home of their dreams. The two typically spent their weekends lounging at home or catching up with friends at the pub, but they'd decided to take advantage of the autumn weather and spend a day in the country. After visiting waterfalls and wineries in the Yarra Valley town of Marysville, they drove back to the city with a nice bottle of red wine. On the way home to cook dinner, David remembered they were out of olive oil. They'd need to get cash out to buy some. The ATM they usually frequented was located on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne's CBD, just outside of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute. This was on the corner of Lansdowne street and St Andrew's Place, a park lined thoroughfare just a few minutes from the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground known as the mcg. It was usually easy to find a parking spot, but it was busier than usual on account of it being Anzac Day. Technically, the national public holiday signified an annual day of remembrance for Australians and New Zealanders who had served at war. But for Melburnians, it also marked the annual Australian Rules football match between two of the state's most popular footy teams, Collingwood and Essendon. The game had been held earlier at the MCG and had drawn a crowd of around 73,000 spectators. Given the lingering football traffic, there were no available car spaces near the atm. Instead, Keith and David parked further down Lansdowne street and took a longer walk. After getting cash out at the atm, they decided to walk back to their car through the Fitzroy Gardens, a 64 acre urban green space filled with tree lined pathways, an ornamental lake and a mock Tudor village. By this point, it was around 7pm the brushtail possums came out at night and David and Keith enjoyed watching. As the couple made their way through the park, two young men suddenly raced towards them. One of them asked aggressively, hey you blokes, have you seen two blokes running through here or hiding in here? The young men told Keith and David that a woman had just been raped in the gardens and they were looking for the offenders. David could smell that the men reeked of alcohol. In unison, he and Keith offered to call the police, but the replied that they'd already done so. David asked them what the rapists looked like. The taller of the two men replied angrily, we don't know. The younger men became increasingly hostile. David began to sense that trouble was brewing. Keith asked the men why they were being so aggressive when he and David were happy to offer their help. But inside, the couple had their Suspicions. From the 1970s to the early 2000s, Sydney earned an undesirable reputation as the gay bashing capital of Australia. For many years, gay men were targeted by gangs for nothing more than their sexuality. These beatings were considered by many to be a form of sport and the perpetrators often bragged about their crimes. In 2018, the New South Wales government launched a landmark special commission of inquiry into these historical hate crimes and found that over those four decades, an average of 20 gay men reported being bashed every single day. As many as 88 gay men were murdered during that time. Many of these deaths were framed to look like suicides. Sydney wasn't the only Australian city troubled by these violent hate crimes. Throughout the early 1990s, it was reported by the Age newspaper that on average, a gay person was murdered in Melbourne and its surrounding suburbs every two to three months. Offenders sought victims at toilet blocks and public parks known to be frequented by gay men seeking casual sex. Bashings at one regional toilet block became so commonplace that authorities recommended it be demolished altogether to protect one another. Gay men created a warning system by writing the number plates of known bashes on the walls of gay beats. Victims were often reluctant to report the crimes, making the statistics unclear. But for members of the LGBTQIA community, the threat of violence was an everyday reality. Keith Hibbins and David Campbell were openly gay and presented themselves as such, often walking around arm in arm. As David later told author Steve Dow, most people know that we're gay without our ever having to say it. They were all too aware of the looming threat of violence, with David alone having been the victim of at least four gay bashings in past. There was a particular area within the Fitzroy Gardens that was known to be a hangout for gay men. Therefore, when they were approached by two young men who were acting overtly aggressive towards them, David and Keith were immediately suspicious of their story that they were trying to catch a rapist. Instead, David thought they might have been gay bashers. He exchanged a knowing look with Keith, who said, we've got to get out of here. Run. David and Keith took off towards Lansdowne Street. The other two men started chasing them. As they ran past a light pole, David's foot became caught on its concrete base and he tripped over. He tried to pull himself back up, but before he managed to do so, something made contact with his mouth and nose. He couldn't tell if it was a fist or a foot. David was then pushed face first into the ground, where the men struck him numerous times in the legs, hips and face. He heard one of them say, I'm going to fucken kill you. Keith saw what was happening and rushed back to help. Leave him alone, he demanded. This brief distraction gave David the opportunity to get up and run away. With a surge of adrenaline, he continued bolting towards the safety of Lansdowne Street. He could feel that one of the attackers was hot on his heels. Once they reached the street, David sideswiped straight into the oncoming traffic. He ran into the middle of the road, desperately waving his arms in an attempt to flag someone down. By the time he got to St Andrew's Lane on the other side, the attacker was gone. A married couple named Paul and Michelle Rogers pulled over. Somebody help us, please. David pleaded. I've been bashed. Keith didn't take the straight path out of the gardens. Instead, he ran at an angle into the darkness, with the taller of the two attackers pursuing him. An accident years earlier left Keith with a broken arm and leg, which had been screwed back together as a result. He wasn't particularly agile and ran in a way described as being like the Tin man from the wizard of Oz. Keith pushed onwards until he emerged from the gardens. Further north, up Lansdowne street, from the seventh floor of the nearby Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, a woman peered out of a window and noticed what was unfolding on the street below. Keith Hibbins was pinned up against a car while the two younger men were, quote, punching the crap out of him. From the woman's view, it looked like the attackers had restrained Keith by the shoulders and were beating him with their fists and elbows. She thought they must have administered at least 20 blows, describing one of the men as a bloody animal. Savage. At no point did she see Keith fight back. At street level, a passerby heard Keith screaming for help and saw the attack unfolding. As the two men continued to beat Keith, they were also heard verbally abusing him. The passerby called for an ambulance, panic in his voice as he told the operator, they're getting stuck into someone up here. Make it quick. Within minutes, Keith Hibbins fell to the ground, unconscious. Meanwhile, around the corner, David Campbell stood outside the entrance of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute. The couple he'd flagged down, Paul and Michelle Rogers, were doing their best to console him as he explained what he and his partner had just been through. Suddenly, the two attackers came running towards them. David immediately fled into the medical centre while Paul Rogers did his best to block the men from entering. Paul and Michelle could smell alcohol on the men's breath and noted that they were slurring their words as they heatedly tried to talk over one another. They aggressively tried to push Paul out of the way to get to David, yelling that a woman had been raped in the park. One of the men asked rhetorically, what would you do if you approached? Two guys told them that and they ran off. He told Michelle that she was protecting a rapist. Michelle said that David was gay and he wasn't responsible. One of the men replied, he would say that, wouldn't he? While the other sneered, likely story. The two offenders returned to the spot where Keith Hibbins lay unconscious in the street and waited for the police to arrive. They presented themselves to the officers immediately, identifying themselves as 27 year old John Whiteside and 23 year old Christian Peter de Bar. Whiteside and Deiba outright admitted they were responsible for the beating. As far as they were concerned, they were just doing their civic duty. A woman had been raped and they had apprehended the culprit. Air conditioning technician John Whiteside was operating on little sleep when a friend picked him up to go to the Anzac Day footy match at the mcg. An avid sports fan, Whiteside had stayed up late watching the World cup cricket on television. Still, he managed to get ready in time to have a few drinks at a pub around the corner from the ground before the match kicked off. It was there that Whiteside and his mate met up with some mutual friends, one of whom was Christian Deiber, a recent economics graduate who worked in the accounts department of a security guard company. The group headed to the game together where they had a few more drinks before returning to the pub after watching Essendon beat Collingwood by eight points. Keen to carry on, they decided to head further into the city for more drinks before calling it a night. At around 7pm the group of six began walking down Wellington Parade along the southern perimeter of the Fitzroy Gardens. There they came across a young woman who was slumped on the ground crying hysterically. She was barefoot and wearing just one sock while the strap of her singlet top had slipped off her shoulder. The group approached to see if she was okay, but as they did so she yelled, are you going to rape me too? In an apparent state of panic she threw her wallet at them saying, just take it and leave me alone. John Whiteside, Christian Deiber and their group of friends didn't know what to do. One of them gave the woman his jacket before Whiteside draped his Collingwood scarf around her neck. A jogger came over and told the group he'd run past the woman earlier and heard her arguing with two men. While the group discussed what to do, the woman continued to sob uncontrollably. They opened her wallet to check if she had any ID and learned that she was 23 year old Evgenia Sionis. The group offered to hail her a taxi, but Evgenia said no, she wanted the police instead. A member of the group called emergency services requesting both the police and an ambulance. Evgenya continued crying. One of the men asked her if she'd been raped, but she didn't give a clear answer. They pressed on, asking if she'd been sexually assaulted. She said yes, she had been assaulted by two men, John Whiteside and Christian Deiber didn't wait around to hear more. With the police and paramedics on the way to tend to Evgenia, they set out on a mission of their own to find the men responsible. Casefile will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors Attention renters. If you haven't heard of bilt, it's time to take note. You can now earn points just by paying rent through bilt. No landlord approval needed. Here's how it works. There's no cost to join bilt, and as a member you'll earn valuable points on rent and your everyday spending. BILT points can be transferred to your favourite hotels and airlines and even the ones you haven't heard of. There are over 500 airlines and 700,000 hotels and properties around the world. You can redeem your built points toward points can also be redeemed towards a future rent payment and unique experiences that only BILT members can access. 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