Tag Archives: oceania

Teens brawl on beach for second day after supermarket trashed

Teenagers have again been filmed brawling on a popular beach in Melbourne, just a day after police labelled troublemakers in the area a "brat pack".

Vision has emerged of dozens of youths shoving each other and throwing punches and kicks at Mordialloc Beach around 8.30pm yesterday.

It's the latest in a series of incidents on the same beach, after hundreds of teens stormed and trashed a nearby Woolworths on Wednesday before clashing with police on the water's edge.

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Vision shows hundreds of young beachgoers storming the Woolworths store.

Elsewhere in the city, police swooped on three young men at a train station in Chelsea.

One of the men had tried to steal alcohol from a liquor store, police allege.

The other two refused to move on and resisted police.

One police officer was injured in the altercation.

On the other side of the city, knives were found stashed in bushes following a brawl in Altona.

Police were called to reports of a brawl at a beachside reserve around 5.30pm yesterday.

A 16-year-old boy was charged with drug offences.

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Hill yesterday vowed to identify every teenager involved in Wednesday's beach riot.

He has been bailed to appear before a childrens' court at a later date.

Two 16-year-old boys and a 19-year-old man were interviewed by police and are expected to be charged via summons.

The investigation into the incident remains ongoing.

This week's spate of beach brawls follows the release of damning crime figures which found child offenders accounted for more than half of all robberies, carjackings, home invasions and aggravated burglaries across the state in the 12 months to September.

A group of almost 1200 children were arrested nearly 7100 times across the year.

"That particular group drives some of the crime types that cause significant harm in the community," Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Robert Hill said.

Hill yesterday vowed to identify every teenager involved in Wednesday's beach riot.

He urged parents to turn their children in if they attended the beach party.

"It's better that you proactively contact police rather than waiting for us to knock on your door in about two or three weeks' time, if not earlier," Hill said.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Robert Hill called the victims of crime figures "disturbing".

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Wednesday's Mordialloc brawl saw the riot squad, water police and the police AirWing deployed to the gathering.

"I've called them a brat pack, you know, young people terrifying those within a shopping precinct and also conducting themselves on the beach, on the foreshore area, attacking our police members," Hill said.

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Mokbel ‘sorry saga’ drags on as retrial left in limbo

Tony Mokbel's barrister has slammed prosecutors after they asked for more time to decide whether to retry the gangland figure on a drug importation charge.

Mokbel, 60, is facing a retrial over the alleged 2005 offending, dubbed Orbital, after the Victorian Court of Appeal set aside his conviction in the aftermath of the Lawyer X saga.

His lawyers in November applied for the proceedings to be discontinued, with the Director of Public Prosecutions indicating they would need some time to consider the matter.

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Tony Mokbel arrives at a Supreme Court hearing to decide if he faces a retrial. Photo by Jason South. 19th December 2025.

Prosecutor Simon Thomas today told the Supreme Court the director still needed until mid-February to decide because the case was complicated.

Mokbel's barrister Julie Condon KC criticised the delay, saying it was completely unacceptable.

"It is very unfortunate given the delay that has tainted this matter," Condon said.

"The line has to be drawn in the sand somewhere."

It's alleged Mokbel dealt with two undercover officers in June 2005, believing they were international MDMA suppliers, and tried to import 100kg of the drug.

Condon said it was not a complicated matter for the director to consider, noting the alleged offending only spanned two weeks.

Mokbel had also effectively served the jail sentence that was originally imposed, the barrister added.

She urged judicial registrar Tim Freeman to adjourn the case to the next possible date, saying her client was keen to have the "sorry saga" come to an end.

Freeman agreed the case needed to progress at the next hearing, either through the director discontinuing the charge or setting down dates towards a retrial.

The case was adjourned to February 6, with Mokbel's bail extended to that date.

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His bail conditions were also varied to allow him to head to Queensland for a three-week holiday over the New Year.

Mokbel, who was supported by his girlfriend, did not speak to reporters as he left the court today.

The 60-year-old had launched an appeal against his three drug convictions, arguing they were tainted by barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo, known as Lawyer X.

He successfully quashed his Quills drug trafficking conviction in October, with the appeal justices finding he had suffered a substantial miscarriage of justice because of Gobbo's actions in secretly providing information to police.

His Orbital importation charge was set aside but the judges ordered a retrial after accepting there still could have been a fair trial if a witness's tainted statement was excluded.

Mokbel lost his appeal on the Magnum drug trafficking offence, finding he had fallen short of establishing there was a real question as to his guilt.

He was re-sentenced on that charge to time already served.

Identity of mystery Bondi Beach hero revealed

The identity of the unsung hero who ran in to help confront one of the Bondi Beach shooters alongside Ahmed al Ahmed has been revealed as 30-year-old Israeli Gefen Bitton.

When shooting began on Sunday evening, Bitton and his friend fled. But when his friend turned around to look for him, he was nowhere to be seen.

"He knew exactly what he was doing, he was just set on a mission to help others," another one of Bitton's friends, Matthew Volpatti, told 9News.

READ MORE: Final victim of Bondi attack named as local grandmother

Gefen was hiking in the Blue Mountains earlier in the day before heading to Bondi to celebrate Hanukkah.

The 30-year-old had sprinted towards danger, alongside Ahmed al-Ahmed, in an attempt to stop the attack.

Shortly after, Bitton's sister in Israel called his friend and said that Bitton called her and said he had been shot.

There was no information on his whereabouts, and his friends travelled to Bondi, trying to find any information about whether he had survived the shooting.

He was eventually found at a hospital, already in surgery for the gunshot wounds he sustained in the attack.

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His father recognised him immediately from the viral video circulating from the attack.

Bitton was eventually identified after his father, who had flown from Israel, recognised him as the man in a red shirt seen in viral footage running in to help Ahmed al Ahmed, who famously disarmed one of the shooters.

Bitton was shot three times and remains in critical condition at St Vincent's Hospital after five rounds of surgery.

His loved ones are raising money for his medical expenses.

"He's got a long road to recovery," Volpatti said.

"He's just a young man come from overseas to have a better life in Australia, and he's gonna need everyone's support."

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