Wa Police Defend Raid Of Supported Independent Living Home In Suburban Perth

By Pip Waller

It is Thursday afternoon in a quiet, suburban home in Perth’s eastern suburbs.

Three women are inside, all with some form of psychosocial disability, alongside two support workers.

They have no warning of what is about to happen.

Cameras throughout the home capture eight police officers, including two from the Tactical Response Group, smashing down the front door and running inside.

“Police! Search Warrant!,” echoed throughout the home.

Uddey, who has asked for his last name not to be used, was one of the support workers inside.

“We heard the sound of the boots and shouting noises … there were seven or eight cops … they were armed as well,” Uddey said.

“They just came up to us, pointed the gun into our face and told us to put our hands up.”

Uddey and the other support worker were handcuffed and told to lay on the ground.

“They told us you’re under arrest. And I was like, ‘what’s going on?'” Uddey said.

“I was just telling them [the police] that there are still the residents in the house, in the room, and it’s a SIL [supported independent living house].

“But they were not listening, just telling us to be quiet.”

Police searched every room in the house, despite it being an NDIS-supported home for vulnerable women with disabilities.

The configuration of the Belmont property is unusual, with two separate homes at the one address, both owned by the same person and one leased for the NDIS home.

A WA Police spokesperson said detectives were executing a drug search warrant on both homes, with their intelligence suggesting they were occupied by a person of interest in an investigation.

“It was soon ascertained that the [NDIS] property was not linked,” the spokesperson said.

Tyler Burness’s company leases and runs the home, and said police could have avoided the situation if they had called him first.

“The residents thankfully were not detained or cuffed [but] they did have weapons pointed at them which is another concern. Because the only two people that were supposed to be there to assist with supporting them, were detained.

“If they potentially felt threatened, they may have launched themselves at a police officer and then the only people who could help them were on the floor cuffed with their hands behind their backs.

“So it was a really intense set of circumstances.”

Mr Burness said it should have been obvious that it was a supported home.

“If they [police] had just looked away from the team and up at the walls, they would have seen behaviour support plans and medication charts and things like that,” he said.

“It’s so obvious.”

The search of the adjacent property led to officers finding methylamphetamine, cannabis, drug paraphernalia and weapons, police said, and two men were taken into custody.

The police spokesperson said it was protocol that parties located inside a property during a search warrant were separated and if required, taken into custody.

“During the search of the second property, two male care workers were taken outside the property and placed into temporary custody,” they said.

“All parties present inside the second property were provided with apologies and reasons for entry.

“Body-worn camera vision of the search has been reviewed and is compliant with police processes.”

But by that point, the damage had been done.

WA Police said compensation for broken property items, such as doors, was only provided by police when entry was forced and no offences had been identified.

Mr Burness said he had not been offered any form of compensation.

He said the three residents needed ongoing support in the wake of the raid to deal with their resulting anxiety.

“One resident living with a schizophrenic disorder believed that the police officer was there for them … and from that point it has been difficult to de-escalate,” Mr Burness said.

“There now is no 100 per cent confidence that they’re in their safe space and now something out of our control means that this person’s baseline, where they go to rest and enjoy life, may feel less safe than what it did since July 16.”

Uddey has returned to work with support from Mr Burness, who paid for counselling and physical therapy.

But the underlying fear of the incident remains with him.

“You’re just working, having a little bit of a break … and suddenly, when you see the police and everyone pointing the guns on you, telling you you are under arrest, obviously you … get freaked out,” Uddey said.

“Even if you say this story to someone, it’s hard to believe. And no one’s going to believe you were pointed at by the gun.”

Mr Burness said he would soon relocate his business and would consider lodging a formal complaint with the Corruption and Crime Commission.

“Do I blame the individual police? No. Do I blame a dysfunctional system? Yes,” he said.

“And especially when you look at the consequences of that broken system, it’s now up to us as a business to rectify their issues and their actions.

“It shouldn’t have taken the house of people of the most vulnerable parts of our population to experience that to then bring it into being a mainstream problem for WA.”

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