Club anger over mob rule

By Tania Martin
EMERALD Junior Football Club is fed-up with the continual vandalism of its clubrooms.
Club president Winston Gatt is calling for an end to all the vandalism and graffiti around the town.
This comes after the Mail last week reported that a mob of more than 100 youths went on a vandalism rampage.
But Mr Gatt said this was not the first time and that both he and the club were sick and tired of cleaning up the damage.
He said the clubrooms at Worrell Reserve had been the target of several attacks of vandalism in the past three weeks. Mr Gatt said several windows had been smashed costing the club more than $2000 to fix.
He said a group of youths had not only smashed the windows but also broken into the clubrooms and made a ‘hell of a mess’.
“It just bugs me that money that we should be spending on the kids is going to fix this senseless damage,” Mr Gatt said.
Mr Gatt is now calling for residents who see youths loitering around the clubrooms to call police.
“A lot of people see it (vandalism) happening and they don’t report it,” he said.
“We are well and truly fed-up with this – it’s such a senseless waste of our money and they (kids) are getting away with it.”
Mr Gatt said instead of spending money on the kids and buying new equipment, the club was being forced to invest in a surveillance camera system.
“We are now in the process of putting in cameras because we aren’t going to wait until we have six more break-in and spend thousands on repairs – we don’t have a choice, we must do this now,” he said.
Mr Gatt said anyone who sees young people acting suspiciously around 2am in the morning should call police straight away to prevent any further destruction around the town. Senior Constable Sonny Legaie of Emerald Police is urging anyone who may have seen any of the attacks on Worrell Reserve to come forward.
He said anyone who sees people acting suspiciously should call 000.
Sen Const Legaie said it was also important for people to take down a description of the clothing the offenders are wearing or keep a lookout for car or motorbike registration numbers.
Anyone who may have any information on the recent vandalism attacks in Emerald should contact police on 5968 4422.