Knives out as city waits for anti-thug laws
His shirt soaked with his own blood from a stab wound, this teenager is the face of yet another weekend of alcohol-fuelled violence.
The victim was one of two young men rushed to hospital with knife wounds after two attacks at city bars within 30 minutes of each other.
The teenager was stabbed in the stomach during a brawl outside the Brighton Hotel on Oxford St, just before 3am on Sunday, the time police and emergency department doctors believe is when alcohol-related crime hits its peak. Police said his attacker then headbutted another man who had come to the 19-year-old's aid. Cameron Skelton, 21, was arrested at the scene and was refused bail during a brief court appearance yesterday.
He will now face Cental Local Court tomorrow on charges of wounding a person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, common assault and having a knife in a public place. His alleged victim remains in a stable condition at St Vincent's Hospital.
Minutes later another man was rushed to the same hospital after he was stabbed during a fight outside the V nightclub in Liverpool St, in the city.
The state government announced last week it would introduce new legislation to clean up Kings Cross by the end of the year, including placing ID scanners at 150 venues in the area and greater use of drug detection dogs.
While the government will not introduce lockouts or change trading hours for Kings Cross venues, Premier Barry O'Farrell said both ideas could be trialled if the violence did not stop.
The ID scanners, which would help stop a person evicted from one venue entering another one nearby, are due to be introduced by the middle of next year.
The changes were prompted by the death of teenager Thomas Kelly in July.
St Vincent's Hospital emergency director Gordian Fulde said drunken violence was a constant but stabbings were on the rise.
"It's a real worry and it has been increasing for the past two months," he said.
"You've got groups of young men who don't like each other and it comes at that danger period between 1am and 3am. That is the time when things really get nasty.
"It's horrible for the individuals. When a knife is involved, it's there to kill something or really hurt something. It's not there for decoration.
"People carry knives to stab and their whole motive is to cause serious damage or death to the person they're stabbing.
"When knives get produced, the chances of someone being killed rise.
"(In the emergency room) with a stab wound, the worry, the energy and the resources that get spent on that person is huge because they could die in front of your eyes.
"Some of these people involved are 19 or 20, they haven't even lived a quarter of their lives.
"A stab wound, if it doesn't kill you, it can cut through a nerve and you may never use that hand or arm again.
"That's a hell of a price to pay for something meaningless like an insult."
Police yesterday said they were doing all they could to stamp out knife crime.
Source: The Daily Telegraph, 24 September 2012
