Police charge pair over alleged park assault as second COVID case at anti-vaccine rally emerges

Victoria Police has charged two Box Hill North residents over an alleged assault on two women in front of their children in a Blackburn North park last Thursday.

Whitehorse crime investigation unit detectives charged a 35-year-old woman with two counts of unlawful assault and one count of affray. A 44-year-old man was charged with two counts of wilfully urging a dog to attack and one count of affray.

The charges came as a second anti-lockdown protester was revealed to have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending rallies while infectious last week and as demonstrators went mostly quiet after a week of noise and fury.

The confrontation in Blackburn North reportedly started because the two women’s 12-year-old daughters noticed the other group, which also included some children, tearing down COVID-19 QR codes at Slater Reserve where they were having a picnic.

Victoria Police said the Box Hill North pair were bailed to appear at Ringwood Magistrates Court on March 25.

Two males who stopped to help the women were bitten by the dog, with the animal sent to the local council ranger.

Whitehorse detectives thanked the public and the media for their help after the matter was made public on Friday.

The second protester to test positive to COVID-19, a Geelong man in his 30s, attended one of the anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine demonstrations last week, COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said on Sunday.

Another protester was admitted to a Melbourne hospital last Thursday for treatment of COVID-19 symptoms.

Mr Weimar said police officers who were exposed to the first COVID-positive protester were continuing to isolate, but none had tested positive to the virus so far.

He said the man in his 30s was probably infectious when he attended a rally last week.

Protesters swept through St Kilda on Saturday. Credit:Justin McManus

“When you see such a large number of people all out on the street together, all doing the things which are in breach of directions regardless of why you’re there, that is an absolute risk,” Mr Weimar said.

“So if you’re going to hang around in a crowd of 500 people, then if there are COVID-positive people there ... the chances are this is where you’re going to see some spread.

“Protesters are not immune from those transmission risks.”

Some organisers of last week’s demonstrations called for a rest day from protests on Sunday, while others mooted picnic gatherings in parks around Victoria via the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

Protesters walking towards Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge.Credit:Jason South

Some protesters planned to meet in public in large groups on Sunday â€" against the Chief Health Officer’s directions â€" to exchange details in suburbs such as Northcote, Werribee, Oakleigh and Dandenong.

But no significant anti-vaccine gatherings occurred, with Victoria Police continuing to patrol parts of Melbourne CBD throughout the day.

One suggested picnic protest spot in Whittlesea was revised on Sunday, according to organisers online, due to “known magpie attacks at Lions Club Park”.

The slowing protest activity comes after a week of clashes and increasing vitriol between those opposing vaccine mandates and Victoria Police, which began on Monday outside the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union offices in Melbourne’s CBD, spurred by the closure of the construction industry.

Traffic was brought to a halt on Tuesday, with a large crowd of protesters streaming across the West Gate Bridge, chanting and lobbing projectiles at police. On Wednesday, in chaotic scenes, thousands of protesters converged on the Shrine of Remembrance, scattering only when the riot squad moved in firing rubber bullets and pepper spray.

Luna Park and St Kilda Beach were earmarked as the gathering point for demonstrators on Saturday but an overwhelming police presence along the foreshore subdued the assembled hundreds within an hour.

After reports that anti-vaccine activists may have been booking COVID-19 vaccine appointments and not showing up, Premier Daniel Andrews said it was “not the sort of behaviour we want to see”.

“You might have a view, but don’t stand in the way of other people expressing their view by pretending to take an appointment,” he said. “That means that someone who wants to turn up and get vaccinated so that they can save their life and the life of others can’t get an appointment. That just doesn’t make any sense.

“That’s the wrong thing to do if, in fact, it is happening.”

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.

Share this post