Deep Water: The Real Story

Up to 80 murders, 30 unsolved cases, thousands of assaults.

In the 1980s and 1990s a murderous epidemic grips Sydney.

The police are indifferent at best, the wider community kept in the dark or simply disinterested.

Claw hammers, steel toe-cap boots, fatal punches and kicks. Vicious gangs stalk their vulnerable victims. These are savage beatings. Frenzied and brutal. Repeated stabbings, bashings and mutilations.

Crimes of hate.

Lured to their deaths in the picture perfect surrounds of Sydney’s stunning coastlines and parklands. The unsuspecting are cornered on the cliffs, their lives ended on the rocks below. Final cries drowned out by the churning ocean.

The attackers are united by contempt. Their targets united by their sexual identity.

All are gay - or assumed by their killers to be gay.

This is the story of how a wave of vicious crime engulfed a community but was invisible to most. A tale of police ineptitude, of a society riddled by homophobia. It’s a story that asks how much a life is worth, which lives are the most valuable, of heartbroken families, of searing grievance.

For the first time Deep Water - The Real Story presents the full account of the gay hate crime epidemic that bloodied Sydney’s coastline. It stirs up old cases in the hope that new evidence will rise to the surface. It sheds light on the many deaths officially recorded as ‘unsolved’, ‘suicide’ or ‘death by misadventure’. Could these men also be the victims of gay hate murders?

Perhaps after all these years, it’s not too late for those responsible to come forward or be found. Not too late for there to be peace for the dead, and justice for their loved ones.