Leafy Lane Cove shows its dark underbelly

Daniel Emerson

July 18, 2008

AFTER three stabbings, a shooting, a car bombing and a local man charged with assisting a fleeing gunman all in the space of a week, residents of Lane Cove North could be forgiven for thinking they live in the new badlands of Sydney.

Even local police agree that the affluent North Shore precinct had been "copping it" of late.

"I don't know what's happening with the drinking water here, mate, but it's a bit of a worry, isn't it?" North Shore police inspector Jeff Bell said.

"We've been copping it a bit lately. Terrible, isn't it? Probably the next Neighbourhood Watch meeting down there will be an interesting one."

The suburb, in which houses sell for an average of $845,000 and the population is 34 per cent Catholic, first hit the headlines recently when three teenagers were stabbed during a brawl at a party on Mowbray Road West on Friday night.

On Tuesday, a home-made pipe bomb exploded under a Jeep Cherokee on Walkers Drive in Lane Cove North Estate.

Another one was defused by the bomb squad.

Police are still investigating whether holes in the front of the Jeep were from shrapnel flying from the bomb, or bullets fired by an automatic weapon that left more than eight cartridges strewn in the street.

The lead investigator, Inspector Peter Yeomans, said the target of the attack was being "unco-operative" but would not comment on reports he was a former Nomad bikie now moonlighting as a strong-arm driver for a Kings Cross identity.

Yesterday police charged a 23-year-old Lane Cove North man with being an accessory after the fact to a shooting with intent to murder in Manly, concealing a serious offence and possessing drugs.

The shooting, on July 5, resulted in a security alert at the Royal North Shore Hospital where the victim was recovering, and the dramatic arrest of the alleged gunman in Martin Place.

Inspector Bell said the incidents were coincidence rather than evidence of a spike in crime in Lane Cove North. "To my knowledge the stabbing bit was certainly unrelated to the pipe-bomb thing, and the young bloke with the shooting over at Manly is just a coincidence as well, unrelated to the other two," he said.

"That's three now, isn't it? They say these things come in threes so hopefully that will be the end of it in Lane Cove for the rest of the year."

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures show the number of reported assaults in Lane Cove had fallen slightly between 2003 and last year but that does not placate residents. One said the target of the car bombing was one of a number of "very beefy, bald-headed" identities who intimidated other residents at the Lane Cove North Estate townhouse complex.

"Lovely, leafy, quiet Lane Cove, hey?" she said.

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