Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command

The Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command (PAC) covers Bondi Beach, Tamarama, Bronte, Waverley, Paddington, Rose Bay, and surrounding suburbs. The PAC office is at 153 Bronte Road, Waverley. It is part of the Central Metro Region.

Within this jurisdiction lie Marks Park (Bondi) and the Bondi–Tamarama clifftops — some of the most significant locations in the documented history of anti-gay hate crimes in NSW — and Paddington’s Oxford Street precinct, the geographic heart of Sydney’s gay and transgender community.

Note on a common confusion: The Eastern Suburbs PAC is distinct from the Eastern Beaches PAC (which covers Maroubra, Coogee, and Randwick to the south). The Bondi Beach / Tamarama / Marks Park area, and the cases of Ross Warren and John Russell, fall within this PAC — Eastern Suburbs.

Police stations in this PAC (current):

Station	Address	Phone	Hours
Bondi Beach	91-93 Roscoe Street, Bondi Beach 2026	02 9365 9699	24 hours
Paddington	16 Jersey Road, Paddington 2021	02 8356 8299	24 hours
Rose Bay	1 Wunulla Road, Point Piper 2027	02 9362 6399	24 hours

Suburbs covered: Bondi Beach, Bondi, Bondi Junction, Bronte, Tamarama, Waverley, Paddington, Rose Bay, Point Piper, Woollahra, Dover Heights, and surrounding areas.

---

Historical significance — Marks Park and the Bondi cliffs:

Marks Park, overlooking the sea at the Bondi–Tamarama headland, was a known beat throughout the 1980s and 1990s. ACON’s In Pursuit of Truth and Justice (2018) specifically identifies Marks Park as a site where multiple anti-gay killings occurred, and where gangs — documented as the “Bondi Boys” — conducted repeated attacks on men attending the beat. ACON records cases of men found at the base of the Bondi–Tamarama cliffs, having been pushed or fallen while trying to escape attackers, in circumstances where blood was later found on the cliff edge and witnesses described seeing the attacks in progress.

Ross Warren and John Russell:

The most documented cases within this jurisdiction are those of television newsreader Ross Warren and barman John Russell, both of whom died on the Bondi–Tamarama cliffs in 1989. Police originally dismissed their deaths as accidental falls. In 2005, then Deputy State Coroner Jacqueline Milledge — working with Operation Taradale’s reinvestigation led by Detective Steve Page — found that both had been murdered amid a spate of attacks on homosexual men at the clifftop beat. The original police investigations, conducted within the jurisdiction of what is now the Eastern Suburbs PAC, were condemned by Coroner Milledge as “lacklustre” and “shameful.” The Warren and Russell cases are among the clearest documented examples of the institutional failure to properly investigate gay hate crime deaths.

Oxford Street precinct — Paddington:

Oxford Street runs through the heart of the Eastern Suburbs PAC’s Paddington jurisdiction. The Paddington end of Oxford Street — from the Victoria Barracks to the border with Darlinghurst — was the primary commercial and social strip of gay Sydney throughout the period covered by this project. The Paddington police station (16 Jersey Road) is the station to which many reports of violence in the Oxford Street precinct were made.

The southern end of Oxford Street, where it transitions into Darlinghurst, lies within the Kings Cross PAC jurisdiction. The exact command boundary and how it affected which station received incident reports varies over time.

Bondi Memorial:

In recognition of the history documented partly within this PAC’s jurisdiction, ACON and Waverley Council have developed the Bondi Memorial at Marks Park — a permanent public artwork (“Rise” by artist John Nicholson) honouring victims and survivors of LGBTIQ hate crimes. Waverley Council, whose local government area covers the Marks Park site, contributed $100,000 in capital works funding and additional asset management resources.

Historical command structure:

The predecessor command(s) covering the Bondi Beach and Paddington area before the current Eastern Suburbs PAC designation have not yet been fully documented for this project. “Waverley Police Area Command” is the most likely predecessor for the Bondi/Waverley area; a separate command may have covered Paddington at various points. Research needed.

Address and station data sourced from NSW Police Force website (accessed 18 July 2026). Warren and Russell case details from SCOI (Sackar J, 2023), Report 58 (NSW Legislative Council, 2021), and ACON (2018).