Broome cable tie incident: City riven by youth crime after shocking images of indigenous children allegedly kept in check by tradition

Disturbing images of three Indigenous children tied up with cable ties by a tradie outside a home in Broome, Western Australia, have won sympathy from weary locals in a city plagued by youth crime.

While the images have sparked national outrage, locals and shop owners in Broome say their city is in the grip of a wave of violent crime.

The idyllic getaway – known for its tropical white-sand beaches, sunset camel rides and palm tree-lined resorts – has been overrun with drugs, robberies and car fires as hundreds of children and teenagers roam the streets unattended at night.

Locals spoke out after the confrontational video, filmed on Tuesday, spread like wildfire on social media, showing images of primary school-age children with their hands tied together by black cable ties.

Burly local trader Mat Radelic, 45, was seen standing over the crying children – a girl and two boys aged six, seven and eight – outside a house on Conkerberry Road, Cable Beach.

Radelic, who runs a local air conditioning company, stood next to the clearly distressed and wailing children until police officers arrived to arrest him.

Initially called to investigate the children’s alleged offending, police later charged the 45-year-old man with three counts of aggravated assault.

It is believed Radelic caught the three children – and a fourth, a boy who escaped – swimming in a backyard pool on a 33°C day. In the footage he claimed it was the sixth time this had happened.

He has been widely condemned by the public for overreacting and scaring the children after the footage went viral.

But locals told Daily Mail Australia the unfortunate incident was just a symptom of a city pushing beyond its limits.

Despite widespread condemnation of the man’s actions, Broome residents cited years of living with burglaries, burglaries, car thefts, arson and teenage gang rampages.

As a store owner, who wished to remain anonymous, she was burglarized twice within a few months and her store was destroyed.

“It’s heartbreaking that a 12-year-old came in and did all this damage just for a can of Red Bull,” she said.

“It’s a huge Kimberley problem. “We have a beautiful city and there are children committing crimes and running amok unsupervised, and that is affecting our tourism.”

The shop owner said tourists from across Australia and abroad have been flocking to Broome in recent years to visit Cable Beach, take a camel ride and stay at a resort.

“You can do that without seeing any of the crime, but in the meantime, at three in the morning, a kid is trying to break in and steal our homes and businesses.”

She said she sympathized with the tradie if it was proven that he was only trying to apprehend perpetrators who had committed a crime against him.

“You wouldn’t use zip ties, but if kids break into my house in the middle of the night, they’ll have to deal with my dogs,” she said.

Lee Du Bray told Daily Mail Australia that when he lived in Broome and installed a $50,000 fiberglass pool in his garden, ‘thThe moment I went outside, the pool was invaded by the local children.

He added: “When I told them to leave, they came back later and threw an entire four-gallon can of paint into the pool, destroying the entire filtration system and, of course, [I had to pay to] empty, clean and refill the pool.

‘After paying for it, they came back weeks later and threw fence posts straight through the fiberglass floor of the pool.

‘The pool had to be reinstalled and refilled – at least $100,000 went down the drain and the children were never even brought before a magistrate.

“I feel sorry for that poor tradie.”

At the end of last year, reports the ABC a Broome businessman who lived in the Kimberley for more than twenty years sold his belongings and left town because of the crime.

His small business was badly vandalized in early November after a break-in, forcing staff living at the back of the business to barricade themselves in a bedroom as the burglary progressed.

The businessman’s daughter said it was ‘a terrifying experience’ as the intruders were ‘extremely violent and said terrible things’.

In early 2022, local police reported that youth crimes in the Kimberley had increased by 54 percent, compared to the previous two years.

When police launched an operation to tackle crime, they discovered hundreds of children were roaming the streets of Broome every night.

The perpetrators included a 10-year-old boy who was charged by police for threatening staff with a knife at a business in Broome city centre.

Police have charged a 13-year-old boy with four counts of aggravated residential burglary, six of theft, two of attempted aggravated burglary and one of theft of a motor vehicle

Boys as young as 14 have also been charged with serious armed robbery.

Residents fear that there is no solution to the continuing wave of theft and violence.

“It’s desperate,” said one local. “And it drives people to desperate actions.”