An Australian surfing identity is warning road travellers after he was assaulted by a gang of knife-wielding thieves at a rest stop.
Queensland businessman Wayne Dart, a former editor of national surfing magazine Tracks and who helped develop Australia’s first man-made wave pool at Yeppoon, used a swim flipper to fight off the five young males who attacked him as he was about to go to sleep at the Boolooroo rest stop on the Newell Hwy near Moree in northern NSW on Thursday night.
Nursing a battered face including a suspected broken nose, the 54-year-old told how other motorists parked at the rest stop ignored his screams for help during the terrifying attack.
Mr Dart said the incident happened after he pulled into the crowded rest stop for a sleep late on Thursday night while driving from Sydney back to Yeppoon.
“I was watching a movie in the back of the Mitsubishi Pajero and was just about to go to sleep when it all went down,” he said.
“These guys had driven into the rest area and were trying to open vehicles that were parked there. One guy ripped my door open and yelled back to his mates, and it was on.
“As I was yelling at them, two of them grabbed me out of the vehicle and I landed on the road on my face.
“I was yelling out ‘help’ at the top of my lungs to other people in the rest area and swinging (punches) as much as I could. At one point, I grabbed a flipper to defend myself against what I believed was a knife they were carrying.”
As well as the flipper, Mr Dart said he used his 20 years of boxing and muay thai training to defend himself.
“I was fighting four of them at once while the other one was going through the car looking for my keys, wallet and phone – whatever they could lay their hands on.
“The guy was yelling out ‘I can’t find anything’ and his mates were going ‘keep looking’.
“Not one person in the rest area came to help – there was a guy that was watching but he told me later he was too fearful to get out of his van – so I was on my own.
“I managed to turn the tables on them a bit and they started to get on the back foot, realising I wasn’t going to stop fighting.
“They tried to get me on the ground but I wasn’t going down because I knew I’d be in all sorts (of strife). Once I got a couple of punches into one of the bigger guys, they started to panic a bit. I assume not many people fight back, but I did.”
Wayne Dart says other people have spoken out about rest stop attacks since he revealed the incident.
Mr Dart said he chased the ringleader as he jumped into the car they had arrived in, yelling to his mates ‘get in the car, get in the f … n car, we’re out of here, let’s go’.
“I ripped the car door open and was punching and kicking the driver and doing everything possible to stop him leaving, and the same with another guy who got into the back,” he said.
“By this stage, I was in a worked-up rage and they panicked so much they accidentally left one of their mates behind. I went straight up to him and had hold of him and they reversed the car back to get him.
“The whole thing lasted for probably three or four minutes but it felt like a lot longer.”
Mr Dart said police were quickly on the scene and he was later told they had apprehended the alleged culprits.
He said it was lucky the victim was not someone vulnerable like an elderly person or a young female solo traveller, like one who was parked at the rest stop just 15 minutes before the attack.
“What chance would she have had against five guys with a knife?” he said.
“I know this sort of thing happens overseas but it shouldn’t be happening here.
“The legal system just seems to be a revolving door where you’ve got these constant repeat offenders, in and out of jail.
“You’ve got these young hoons becoming increasingly violent, with no fear of rebuttal for their lawlessness and no knowledge of how to be a decent community-focused human.
“They seem to be doing it for sport, for the thrill of the theft more than anything. They only got away with my mobile phone and they chucked it into some bushes about 200m from the rest stop.”
Mr Dart said he had since seen social media posts about similar attacks at other rest stops, with drivers including truckies being targeted.
He said authorities might have to look at upgrading security at the stops, such as CCTV cameras and better lighting.
“People need to be aware and take proper security precautions, including making sure they lock their car when they’re parked at these rest areas,” he said.
NSW police said they had arrested a man and four teenage boys over the incident involving Mr Dart as part of an investigation into alleged property offences in the Boggabilla, Mungindi and Moree areas.
They said it would be alleged the five were in a stolen Volkswagen Tourag which was chased by police after a service-station drive off at Boggabilla on Thursday night.
Police said the short pursuit was terminated over safety concerns and the vehicle allegedly later drove “directly” at officers before the incident involving Mr Dart.
Police said they deployed road spikes to stop the VW and the group fled, with two alleged offenders found hiding under a paddock and the others picked up on the Newell Hwy.
The five – aged 14 to 18 – were charged with a range of offences including aggravated robbery and using corporal violence.