Police have conducted a safety audit of Newport in the wake of 13 indecent assaults between April 29 and August 10.
According to the audit, all of the assaults occurred in “dimly lit areas”.
Leading Senior Constable Craig McDonald said he had conducted an audit of the Mason Street area and would present a report to Hobsons Bay council.
“I went to every location where they were reported just to see why that happened in that area … it confirmed to me, clearly, that they were in dimly lit areas,” he said.
“Of a night-time … it doesn’t feel comfortable.
“Mason Street is not lit up like Luna Park and it never will be. There’s a standard of lighting that the council has reached, but sometimes we have overgrown areas where it gets dimmer or maybe a light globe may have gone out.”
Police, who held a community meeting at the Newport Community Education Centre on Wednesday last week, have advised women not to wear headphones when walking or running because it “knocks out one of their senses”.
One woman responded that it was her right to go for a run with headphones and “get into that zone”. Superintendent Stuart Bateson replied that she did have the right, but “unfortunately, people like this offender impact on that right”.
Last year, Leading Senior Constable McDonald conducted an audit of Altona’s Harrington Square shopping centre in the wake of a brutal bashing and a spate of armed robberies.
Jill Brookes, then 61 and the owner of the former Westside Stories bookshop, was almost bashed to death on July 20, 2012, and her assault remains unsolved.
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