Punch Drunk

Producers: Jonathan Harley and Hugh Nailon

It's not a pretty sight. These days, you take your life in your hands just going out for a drink with your mates.

Late at night, early in the morning our cities are no-go areas, unless you're all steamed up and looking for a fight.

Too much booze, too much aggro - it's a recipe for disaster.

So much so, the government's taken action. The Prime Minister says he wants to scare the living daylights out of teenage binge drinkers.

Not before time. Liam Bartlett has been out on the mean streets with the police, seen the violence, met some of the tragic victims.

And it sure scared the hell out of him.

PICTURE GALLERY: Punch Drunk

Full transcript

STORY -

LIAM BARTLETT:

SENIOR SERGEANT GLENN JACKSON: If they're going to be violent and aggressive, let's get them and let's put them in the bin.

LIAM BARLETT: 11 o'clock, Saturday night. And these 50 cops are about to enter the fray.

POLICE OFFICER: I want all hands on deck after 3:00. That's when it obviously turns nasty.

LIAM BARLETT: It's dirty work, and as the night wears on, the streets get meaner. Here in Melbourne, 750,000 party-goers flood the inner city every weekend. Most come to drink.

LIAM BARLETT: Too many come to fight.

MALE PARTY-GOER: Just get the f---ing ambulance right here, right now.

LIAM BARLETT: What happened?

MALE PARTY-GOER: What do you mean what happened, man?

LIAM BARLETT: What happened?

MALE PARTY-GOER: What the f---s that, man?

SENIOR SERGEANT GLENN JACKSON: I'll get the other guys to go and do the walk-through, if you could just stay out the front so I don't tie you up.

SENIOR SERGEANT GLENN JACKSON: Thanks boys! What's on that close? 3:00?

TRAFFIC AUTHORITY OFFICER: That closes at 5:00.

LIAM BARTLETT: Senior Sergeant Glenn Jackson has been a policeman for 23 years. Only recently has he seen so many punters, drinking so late into the night and getting so aggro.

SENIOR SERGEANT GLENN JACKSON: You're looking at weapons, you're looking at glass, knives, It's not just a your toe-to-toe people boxing on. What it is, is people going further. If someone goes to the ground, people are inclined these days to put the boots in. And that leads to full-scale violence and in some instances, people being seriously assaulted and seriously injured.

LIAM BARTLETT: In other words, they don't need much of an excuse to have a blue?

SENIOR SERGEANT GLENN JACKSON: Yeah, that's right.

DR TANYA CHIKRITZHS: It's an accident waiting to happen.

DR TANYA CHIKRITZHS: Something happens at midnight. It's like this witching hour.

LIAM BARTLETT: Dr Tanya Chikritzhs, from the National Drug Research Institute has studied the sharp rise in drunken violence.

DR TANYA CHIKRITZHS: It's pretty simple. Late trading, young fellows. skinful, equals problems on the street.

LIAM BARTLETT: Her research confirms what any inner city police officer will tell you - later trading hours for pubs and clubs is fanning a national epidemic of late-night violence.

DR TANYA CHIKRITZHS: We found a 70% increase in violence in and around premises that traded for even a 1 or a 2-hour extra. So instead of closing at midnight, closed at 2am perhaps. REPORTER

LIAM BARTLETT: 70%?

DR TANYA CHIKRITZHS: 70%. More road-crash injuries, more alcohol disturbances, more hospitalisation, more emergency department presentations, more problems for police. REPORTER

LIAM BARTLETT: The problem is all too visible but the human cost is often hidden. Do you mind if we have a look?

DAVID TUCK: No, that's fine, that's fine. This is what they've done to me, and if I touch there now, I'm touching my brain.

LIAM BARTLETT: Can I have a feel?

DAVE TUCK: Yeah, yep, that's fine.

LIAM BARTLETT: That's going straight through. DAVE TUCK; Yeah, that's right. REPORTER

LIAM BARTLETT: David Tuck looks like this because a bunch of drunken thugs bashed him and his fiancee Marita outside a favourite Melbourne pub.

DAVE TUCK: I turned around and there was a group of eight or more guys coming my way.

LIAM BARTLETT: A row over a taxi, fuelled by alcohol, quickly escalated into a brutal attack.

DAVE TUCK: I got as far as here to this corner, they were still hitting into me and there was the last punch around about here.

LIAM BARTLETT: They've hit him...

MARITA: Yes.

LIAM BARTLETT: ..Dave's head landed - what? About here?

MARITA: Around about there, yes. It hit it that hard, it actually bounced back up and then he started frothing at the mouth and convulsing on the ground.

LIAM BARTLETT: Frothing at the mouth? Literally?

MARITA: Yes, he was frothing at the mouth. That is when I knew he was in serious trouble. I was screaming - it was terrible.

JOE COSSARI, NIGHTCLUB OWNER: They throw beer bottles, they punch people from behind. And when they fight, they fight in massive groups. It just takes one clip on the head, someone to fall over, hit their head on the concrete and you've wasted a life.

LIAM BARTLETT: Joe Cossari has watched the rise in violence accompany the rise of the late-night crowd. But Joe is also making a motza out of it. He owns Melbourne's inner city Balcony nightclub.

JOE COSSARI, NIGHTCLUB OWNER: 10, 11 o'clock seems to be the hours to go out. We're still licensed only till 3 o'clock. That gives them four hours to drink. And when they drink, they drink pretty hard and fast in those four hours.

LIAM BARTLETT: How much more profitable is it for you to open later?

JOE COSSARI, NIGHTCLUB OWNER: Certainly between 12:00 and 3:00 is where all the drinking seriously seems to be done and the money is to be made.

LIAM BARTLETT: It's also seriously violent. As Joe's surveillance cameras show, things turn ugly very quickly. Watch the guy sitting down on the couch.

JOE COSSARI, NIGHTCLUB OWNER: A comment must have been enough to trigger him off and boom - that's all it took. It looks like the thing to do is to go out, drink, and, you know, at the end of the night get in a good punch-up with your friends and go home.

ROBYN MACREADY-BRYAN: How are you?

LIAM BARTLETT: Some, like James Macready-Bryan, never make it home.

ROBYN MACREADY-BRYAN: You gonna smile for Mum? Like to give me a little smile? NURSE: There you go, matey.

LIAM BARTLETT: That's to rehydrate, is it? NURSE: Yeah, well you know how you drink water during the day? This is his glass of water after each feed and between each feed sort of thing.

LIAM BARTLETT: This footy-mad, outgoing young man was chased and brutally bashed while celebrating his 20th birthday. Now, more than a year later, James is paralysed and can murmur just one word. JAMES: (Groans) Mum. Mum.

ROBYN MACREADY-BRYAN: Yeah, thanks, James. You're doing really well with your talking. Yes, you are.

LIAM BARTLETT: His mother Robyn must care for James as if he were a baby again. She grieves for a vibrant life brutally bashed away.

ROBYN MACREADY-BRYAN: Whereas he was stepping out at 20, now 21 into the world on his own, James now, I would think, would be my responsibility for all my life and I will worry what happens to him when I am no longer around to care for him too.

LIAM BARTLETT: When you die?

ROBYN MACREADY-BRYAN: Mmmm.

PROFESSOR ANDREW KAYE: This is the worst thing that can happen to a person or to their family. The brain is a bit like a jelly and it wobbles a bit.

LIAM BARTLETT: Professor Andrew Kaye treated James - one of half-a-dozen drunk-bashing cases, the leading neurosurgeon sees every year.

PROFESSOR ANDREW KAYE: The brain comes down, hits the back of the head, say on concrete, this part then goes forward, jamming it up against the skull. And that's what causes the immediate injury. One second, the person is normal and healthy, the next second, their life is just devastated.

LIAM BARTLETT: Prognosis for James?

PROFESSOR ANDREW KAYE: Poor.

LIAM BARTLETT: The outlook?

PROFESSOR ANDREW KAYE: Poor. Terrible. There is nothing worse and I've seen some bad things.

LIAM BARTLETT: I have got two sons, and I just can't imagine how you cope.

ROBYN MACREADY-BRYAN: I want to stop the violence that's growing in the community and so to do that, I have to hold myself together and try to make something positive out of a most horrific incident.

LIAM BARTLETT: But as long as pubs extend their opening hours, the only way to stop the violence is to get tough on drinkers who don't know when to stop.

LIAM BARTLETT: To find out how easy it is for a drunk to get a drink, we hired an actor - David Grossman.

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: Test, test, test, test test, testing. I'm going to ham it up a lot so any normal person looking at me would definitely notice that I'm drunk.

LIAM BARTLETT: They'll be no doubt in anybody's mind that you'll be blotto?

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: None at all, I'll make sure of it.

LIAM BARTLETT: You know that under the law, they should not serve you a drink.

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: Yeah, yeah, theoretically, they should either throw me out of the pub or they should refuse me service.

LIAM BARTLETT: Alright, we'll see how the test goes. Good luck.

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: Thanks, mate. I like it, I like it. As long as it's a double that's all I care about.

LIAM BARTLETT: David visited eight pubs in Sydney and Melbourne. This is just one of them. No trouble getting a drink...

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: Yes, double that's what I want!

LIAM BARTLETT: ..or a chaser.

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: You know I'm buying. I'm always buying! Yes, yes!

LIAM BARTLETT: The drinks just kept coming.

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: I ask for a single, they give me a single. I ask for doubles, they give me doubles. Three times they gave me doubles.

LIAM BARTLETT: But did you even look like getting kicked out?

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: Well I mean I tried to be like Ahhh! and they still give me.

LIAM BARTLETT: Eight venues, the drinks flow and so does the money for this $11 billion industry.

ACTOR DAVID GROSSMAN: Take a high-five.

LIAM BARTLETT: For late-night publicans like Joe Cossari, after midnight trade means a whopping 30% jump in turnover. In all this, you've got a vested interest because you're making the money.

JOE COSSARI: Of course.

LIAM BARTLETT: Because you're selling the grog...

JOE COSSARI: Yep.

LIAM BARTLETT: ..that causes the problem.

JOE COSSARI: Certainly, I'm in the business to make money, there's no doubt about that and this is the industry we have chosen. We're doing it within a reasonable limit. Alcohol's not illegal, we're allowed to drink alcohol and we do it and we serve it within a reasonable limit.

LIAM BARTLETT: But we know, some pubs will just keep serving people.

JOE COSSARI: Unfortunately, it probably does happen.

LIAM BARTLETT: Every weekend, in every Australian city, those ugly hours after midnight are guaranteed to bring trouble. And as James Macready-Bryan found out, all it takes is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. ROBYN: I remember saying to him, you know, when he started going into the city please be careful. He said, "Oh, I can look after myself" - a typical 18-, 19-year-old. As a lot of young men think, they think they're invincible and ah...

LIAM BARTLETT: Bulletproof. ROBYN: Yeah, bulletproof.

LIAM BARTLETT: You just can't imagine somebody would do this, can you? ROBYN: It's like revulsion is what I feel more than anything. I just, I can't understand it still. Um, it's just appalling. And I just don't want it to have to happen to anybody else.

DAVE TUCK: A simple catch-up with your friends and a couple of drinks turned into what's been now about 5.5 months in hospital. And walking around with part of my head missing, yeah.

LIAM BARTLETT: A simple night out has turned into a horror story?

DAVE TUCK: That's right, yeah. DR KAVAR: That's the scan that we did after the operation, where we took off all of that front bit and the temple bits on your head.

LIAM BARTLETT: For Dave, things are looking better. The part of his skull that was removed in life-saving surgery will be replaced by a titanium mould. DR KAVAR: Whatever it is, it's to effectively recreate the lost bone that you have.

MARITA: Now what are you gonna do tomorrow?

DAVE TUCK: Me?

LIAM BARTLETT: And he and Marita are looking to the future, planning a wedding and a family and leaving behind the late nights on the mean streets.

DAVE TUCK: I don't want to be near it, or part of it, I don't want to feel part of that environment at all. There's there's too many bad guys out there really. They enjoy it. They don't mind going out as a big group and finding a smaller group that they know they can beat and taking them on. And they've just become pigs. That's what they do.