By Mikayla van Loon
From the smaller incidents of theft to ram raids, fires and vandalism that have plagued urban town centres over recent years, each could have been limited or at least easily investigated with active CCTV.
While a timeline of incidents would no doubt date back further, Star Mail has drawn upon its own archives since 2021 to piece together criminal incidents across Lilydale, Mooroolbark, Mount Evelyn and Montrose.
An incident that triggered community outcry was the suspicious blaze that sent the old Lilydale fire station up in flames in late May 2021.
The abandoned building on Main Street was destroyed by the fire and had to be demolished after finding it structurally unsound.
It had been known for smaller fires in the past, having been a location used by squatters in winter to keep warm.
In the lead up to Remembrance Day in November 2021, Lilydale RSL had three Poppy Appeal donation tins stolen from different locations across the township.
“The thefts occurred at a business on Castella Street on 26 October, and at two separate businesses on Hutchinson Street on 3 November and 5 November,” a police spokesperson said at the time.
Come 2022, vandalism was rife throughout Lilydale, seeing an increase in antisocial behaviour mostly from young people, attributed to boredom during the winter months.
While incidents of graffiti and bus stops being smashed occurred, a donation bin fire at the Lilydale Marketplace on Saturday 30 July sparked concern among many of the town’s groups and organisations.
Lilydale Township Action Group (LTAG) president Neal Taylor said at the time, there certainly had been a rise in frequency of events like this happening in Lilydale.
“We believe it’s something that’s happening more frequently now. We’ve had a couple of our committee members catch younger people doing vandalism and also graffiti,” he said.
“So it appears that there is a group of youths that seems to be causing a lot of problems.”
Although Lilydale does have a number of security cameras placed along Main Street, Mr Taylor said perhaps advocacy for more cameras in different locations would help deter these youth as well.
“There needs to be some cameras in the ‘behind the scenes’ areas like the football club, it needs to have one there. Stuff like that needs to be taken into account as well.
“It is very frustrating, particularly around the bus shelters and it seemed like it was a late night thing where they’ve come along and smashed it thinking it was fun. It’s incredibly annoying that people can’t respect those sorts of things.”
Speaking to Star Mail in 2022, Mr Taylor didn’t want to draw attention to the lack of CCTV efficiency, given the increase in vandalism incidents but even then he was aware of the need to repair and replace the systems.
“There are security cameras in place but not all of them are working. A number of them have broken down, and there’s no money to fix them,” he said.
“They were put in place by all the businesses getting together and raising funds…they were set up, and they were maintained and all of the footage was fed to the police.
“But what we understand at LTAG is that a number of them aren’t working anymore. They’re obsolete and they need lots of repairs or replacements.”
In mid August, a Silver Navara 4WD ute was driven through the window of the Montrose IGA on Mt Dandenong Tourist Road.
The businesses own CCTV footage showed the vehicle being reversed between traffic bollards before crashing into the building, causing a smoke-based security system to be set off.
Montrose IGA owner Brad Munro said the security system was installed after another burglary incident in May 2021 and it was the first time it had been activated.
The following day, a man allegedly forced entry into the IGA around 7.30pm and grabbed the content of the till within the cash register before fleeing the scene.
“Our CCTV footage was enough to identify the type of car and the actual people. Once again that’s another system we’ve just upgraded,” Mr Munro said.
“We’ve got 34 cameras around the building and within it, along with the council’s CCTV they’re in the process of installing makes it hopefully a lot more secure.”
Victoria Police said a 33-year-old man was arrested after a carjacking in Bayswater on Tuesday 9 August, where it was “ascertained the man was involved in a burglary at a supermarket in Mt Dandenong Tourist Road early Tuesday morning” and the two incidents weren’t linked.
Mr Munro said it was the third time his business had been targeted, not to mention other incidents along the street.
“There have been some car thefts, there’s been a lot of graffiti, damage to buildings, damage to property, damage to council assets and hopefully with all these upgraded security measures we can curtail it a bit.”
Just days later on Thursday 9 August a Nissan Navara that was set alight on Castella Street, near Gardiner Street, with Yarra Ranges Criminal Investigation Unit detective senior constable Robert Plaucs saying police “believe it is the same vehicle from a burglary at Montrose IGA.”
It was the second car fire in the same week with firefighters responding to a similar call on Sunday 7 August on Bellbird Drive.
Det SC Plaucs confirmed the car fire on Sunday was connected to a burglary that occurred in Silvan not long before the incident.
“We’ve responded to five suspicious fires within the township in just over a week,” Lilydale CFA then executive manager Ron Haines said.
Mr Haines said at the time he wrote to Yarra Ranges Council to enquire about upgrading CCTV cameras around the town.
“Something needs to be done, the cameras need upgrading,” he said.
“It’s very concerning and we need the local community to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity or behaviour to the local police station or Crime Stoppers.”
A few weeks later Victoria Road Primary School became the target of further vandalism, with windows smashed and graffiti tags plastered across the school campus.
In a continuing and disappointing occurrence, war memorials were again a target of vandals in 2023, with Montrose and Seville bearing the brunt of the attacks.
The “mindless” act of scratching what appeared to be in the shape of a love heart into the Montrose War Memorial in February was just the first requiring quick repair.
Montrose was again targeted in two separate attacks of vandalism and a break in in November 2023, leaving the community outraged by the behaviour.
Members of the community awoke early on Saturday 11 November to find the war memorial had been vandalised with red spray paint in the lead up to the Remembrance Day service.
The historic cottage in the Town Centre, home of the Montrose Township Group, also had items stolen.
Just months prior in September, the Seville War Memorial had the glass panels smashed, leaving a costly replacement for the community, which was only fixed earlier this year.
The most recent incident to occur was the suspicious fire at the Lilydale Recreation Reserve grandstand on Wednesday 12 February this year.
“For weeks now, it’s been coming. They’ve been breaking the seats, leaving a stack of debris up there, having copious amounts of drugs, and with no real consequence, because there’s not much we can do but talk to the police,” Lilydale Cricket Club president Steve Oxley said.
A place noted by Mr Taylor three years earlier as a behind the scenes area, Mr Oxley said in February “we have no real surveillance” also under the impression that “the cameras have all been shut off”.
Mooroolbark Police Sergeant Cal Cunningham said when CCTV works, it is effective.
“There was an incident recently where an offender targeted a male on Brice Avenue, and some of the cameras captured that. That’s invaluable to have that kind of evidence,” he said.
“There’s been countless incidents. I can’t recall the specifics but where we hear over the radio that there’s an issue going on.
“We can give live updates to a police unit going out there that ‘yes, we can see the people and this is where they’re headed’. If we didn’t have that, they could just slip away, because it takes time for a police unit to get to a location where the cameras are live in an instant, so we can actually see what’s going on right away.”
