 Good morning everybody. How are you? Are we good to go? Just before we start, could I just introduce on my left Acting Detective Superintendent Rod Camp, who's the regional crime coordinator for the Metro South region, and on my right Acting Detective Superintendent Chris Jorry, J-O-R-Y, who is the regional crime coordinator for the Gold Coast region. Good morning. All right. Well, good morning. We just wanted to come together just to provide some further details about the overnight arrests by detectives of two men and a boy following investigations into a number of armed robberies that have occurred in the Logan and South Brisbane areas. The boy has been charged with 23 offences and the two men have been charged with 6 and 7 offences respectively including armed robbery and company going armed so as to cause fear and unlawful use of a motor vehicle. The results have come as a result of Operation Juliet Magnetic with offence states ranging from mid-March through to early May. So in total as a result of yesterday's police activity, 5 people have been charged with 44 offences. They occurred throughout the southeastern region and metropolitan south regions. This is a great result. It shows the commitment of officers in the southeastern and metropolitan south regions together with officers from State Crime Commission's command to solving these very serious offences. About 35 detectives have been actively investigating these offences. A demonstration of how seriously the QPS views these type of offences. I just talked briefly about this crime in general in terms of how it's progressing this year. Whilst there has been a spike in armed robbery offences in April, the overall number of offences across Queensland is very similar to recent years. Between the 1st of January and April 30 this year there were 308 robberies in Queensland. This is 13 more than the same time last year but apart from last year it's the lowest number that we have had for over a decade. Specifically on the Gold Coast District there have been 43. That's actually one less than the same period last year 25 less than the same period in 2009. So I think that's just important in terms of context. When we've analysed these recent offences we have determined they've been committed by a number of isolated individuals in groups who are not acting together and certainly is not indicative of any level of organised crime. Investigations into these offences are certainly ongoing and we do encourage anyone in the public who has any information about any of the offences that we have mentioned and they have seen on news reports to contact crime stoppers on 1-800-333-000. We also appeal to business owners to ensure that they take all the necessary steps that they can to ensure the safety of their staff and to try and enhance the protectiveness of their business to make them a less attractive target for people who are contemplating some of these crimes. So happy to take questions. The Premier met with the Commissioner yesterday afternoon about the potential of an armed robbery squad. What's the result of that meeting? Yes, the Premier has spoken to the Acting Commissioner this morning. It's been agreed that the deployment of resources to combat these types of offences is an operational issue for the QPS and it's been agreed that our preferred model is that for these types of offences it's appropriate that the regional detectives have the lead and that as and when required we will provide additional support from State Crime Operations Command. So there'll be no squad formed specifically to tackle this? It'll just be the regional CIB? Well we already have an armed robbery unit at State Crime Operations Command and obviously that's looking at the more sophisticated and major offences that occur, banks, armored cars, those sorts of things. These sorts of what we would call soft target, isolated armed robbery offences have traditionally always been the responsibility primarily of the regions and they have shown a great aptitude to be able to handle these. The clear-up rate for these types of offences is about 55% statewide. Do you know what the clearance rate is so far this year? No, I don't have those figures with me. The fact that we had such a strain in April anyway, you guys are actually arrested people now. I'd imagine you'd be aware of the reasons. Can you tell us more? These guys had a fever to do with that squad, I'd imagine a sheer number of offences. Is there any reasons they've given you as to why they went on such a rampage? Well I'm happy to defer to one of the supers. Well yes, good morning everyone. Perhaps I could answer that this way whilst the investigation is still ongoing and now are associates of the current people that are before the court outstanding I can't go into intimate detail other than to say these people are generally young in age and we see it as some sort of a scheme of a challenge or a thrill seeking if you like, ex-presaid by them and apart from that, like the deputy said, it's certainly not an organised crime level or anything like that. They're just young youths that were seeking a thrill seeking if you like and like I said the other day to the media it was rather amateurish and I would like to just at this point too thank the support from state crime operations command that we had. Because of the spike in the soft target armed robberies we got on the state crime operations command and we got excellent support over the long weekend which was greatly appreciated. Can I just add to that clearly the people who commit these offences have little or no appreciation of the trauma psychological damage that they cause to the victims of these offences what might seem to be you know some sort of escapade has potentially long lasting and serious health and mental implications for the victims of these crimes and that should never be forgotten. But when they were arrested or did they cooperate? I can say that too. Sorry, yes. Sorry. I can say in this instance that we've had two attendants injured, mine injuries all be it but obviously horrific being in their situation. Fortunately we've arrested persons for those particular offences One attendant received an injury to the hand, I believe a fracture to the bone in the hand. The other attendant received some bruising. Neither were hospitalised but obviously quite traumatic and you can only imagine what those people have felt. Can I just say too I'd like to thank the retailers association and the business people. This has been brought about with a team effort from our crime prevention people working in closely if we didn't have close circuit TV coverage that we have these days then perhaps this matter would not have been solved in the manner it has. So I'd like to thank them for going to the extra cost of putting in these security measures. So these three people that have been arrested overnight, have they worked with again on all occasions? We've arrested five, 44 offences as I said they're youths that are known to each other, associates of each other. We believe there's 14 of these offences linked. Seven of them currently have been cleared and our detectives are working on the others but we do think 14 of these are linked or can be attributed to these people. Can you go into the details of which ones they are so we can find them on our system? Yeah perhaps I could give you a list after this by all means yes. And they're in the South Brisbane and Logan areas. What sort of weapons do you like? Yes an iron bar, a tyre, a lever type weapon was used initially and then it became knives perhaps I could... These individuals were located at a number of addresses in the Logan district and their arrests went without incident. Were those all relatively at the same time? Yes it was a coordinated response by police from State Crime Operations Command, Metropolitan South Police Region and South Eastern Police Region. As Detective Superintendent Kemp said there was 35 investigators involved in the response and after a briefing in the early hours of the morning we coordinated our response. Obviously for the business traders it's an obvious relief. We see it as a success. We do accept however that there are a number of other offences that we are working on and need to solve. It is a success for police but it is a success which is based on the assistance that's been provided to us over the past several months through our crime stoppers network and also through the business community. Were any of the three of them from overnight together? No they were at individual addresses however due to our use of intelligence holdings and other conventional policing strategies we were able to locate those individuals at those addresses. You're saying that the numbers aren't just similar to last year overall only 13 more yet the Premier thought it was such a serious issue as she met with the acting Commissioner this morning. Well unfortunately we've had a compressed number in a fairly short time frame which led to the impression that there was some sort of explosion in the number of offences in fact that's not borne out when you look at the stats year on year for the last decade in fact we're travelling very well. But it can be like the road toll if we have a number of fatal road accidents one after the other it can create an impression that's not always borne out by the facts. We certainly totally understand and recognise the community concern, the concern of all people about the fact that we are having arm robbery offences. It is in fact a life imprisonment offence. The fact that it's committed at three o'clock in the morning at a service station by a lone offender with a knife doesn't make it any less serious. The trauma that is caused to the people who are the victims of these offences is very significant we recognise arm robbery as a most significant offence and we treat it accordingly and that's why we put the necessary resources into it. There are a couple of hold-ups on the Gold Coast overnight. How's the clean-up going down there? Well look in terms of the police response to arm robberies on the Gold Coast the local district officers have pulled together resources from their criminal investigation branches. So Logan Police District, Kuma Police District and Gold Coast Police District have dedicated criminal investigators to respond to those arm robberies we work where we have identified linkages between those offences and others with state crime operations command we speak to crime operations on a daily basis and we speak to our counterparts in our neighbouring districts and regions as well. Would it be easier though to have a designated robbery school as to hear all of that? Well I think we've probably already covered that conversation that's been had between the Premier and the Acting Commissioner this morning. We do have an arm robbery squad as I indicated but that's a squad that looks at the higher end of offending as I said offences that involve sophistication, a lot of planning, new techniques where there's a high end reward we have a group like that because we need to make sure that their network nationally to keep in touch with developing trends across the country in high range arm robbery offences but their focus is not specifically on these offences. Regional detectives are more than adequately capable of managing the investigation of these offences as is shown by the clear up rate year in year out but where we're asked for assistance to deal with a particular spate of arm robberies we are more than happy to assist and we do and the results of that collaboration is evident in the arrests overnight. The Gold Coast last year had a fairly low clear up rate about the third worst in the state. Is there any reason for that? Well the statistics I have show that across the state we had an overall clear up rate of about 55% and the Gold Coast was at 51% so I think on the statistics that I have it's comparable with what occurs around the state. I've got statistics that say it's lower than that I was wondering why that might be. Well I can only comment on the information that I have and that's the stats that have been referred to me but I'm sorry I can't assist you.