3AW Drive with Jacqui Felgate - 8 October, 2026 - Full Show

Thanks for your company on Drive. In a moment, I'm gonna tell you about a new low in youth offending involving an autistic 26-year-old man who was so violently bashed by a group of children, he ended up in hospital. I'll get to that in just a moment. But also today, the escalating firebombing war. Again, children hired on WhatsApp to burn down your cars and even your home. Now, I told you about this yesterday, Operation Phoenix. We have a group of criminals hiring youth offenders to target innocent Melburnians and set their cars on fire in their driveways. So this is like the pub and nightclub bombings that we had earlier in the year, but this time it's your car, and this time it's your home. Innocent people in their homes asleep in the early hours of the morning. Now, I told you about this innocent couple in Maidstone yesterday. They have lost everything now. All that is left of their home is a shell, because these offenders come in and they throw Molotov cocktails or similar in the garage, in the driveway, into your vehicles, and then that blaze spreads from your cars to your house, and all that is left is a shell. That couple have lost their home, and they could so easily have been killed or injured. And what if they had children or a baby? So let's run through the last week. Monday, two cars in a driveway torched in Taylors Hill. Tuesday, a car parked in the driveway of a Keilor home destroyed. Wednesday, a car in Balwyn North. Another car, this is the one I'm telling you about, in Maidstone. Flames spreading into the home, burning down the home. Thursday, Reservoir. And it goes on and on and on. Springvale, Oakleigh East. That's just a short list, and that's all we know so far. So as part of that crime spree as well, a 13-year-old was burnt to 90% of his body, and he remains in a critical condition in hospital. So I'll play you now, um, a little bit, and I'm gonna speak to him later in the program, of Acting Commander Troy Papworth from Victoria Police.

To date, we have seen a sum total of 7,188 police patrols occurring across that time that we've been operating Operation Phoenix. Those members on Operation Phoenix have been involved in 165 arrests to date, which is an astonishing amount of work. Now, all of those arrests are crimes that have either been committed or crimes that we're deterring as people are on their way to commit crime. So really committing and really sort of focusing on that presence and prevention model as part of our operating model.

And isn't this just absolutely frightening? Like frightening. You are innocent Melburnians. You can be from Oakleigh to Sunshine to Maidstone, and your home can be burnt to the ground. Your cars can be burnt to the ground. You've got no prior involvement with any criminal activity whatsoever. And it takes us back again to our youth crime wave. And I've been sent photos of, in particular, the alleged offenders in that Maidstone firebombing, and I, I hate to say it, but let's wait and see prior convictions and any bail history. We wait with interest when they're arrested and seen, because it's the same kind of modus operandi that we've consistently had when it comes to youth offending in