Police have charged two men after they allegedly held a tenant against his will when he was unable to pay his rent due to the COVID crisis.
\nOfficers from Surry Hills Police Area Command have been told the tenant and a friend arrived at a rental property on Clifton Reserve, Surry Hills, about 3.30pm on Wednesday (17 June 2020), and were met by the property owner and another man.
\nThe tenant, a 24-year-old man, told police he owed back-rent after getting into financial difficulties due to the COVID crisis, but believed he\u2019d negotiated a payment plan with the property owner.
\nThe tenant was met at the property by the two men who, police allege, threatened then assaulted him and prevented him from leaving the premises until he\u2019d paid the outstanding rent in full.
\nAfter the tenant transferred funds, he and his friend were allowed to leave. They went immediately to Surry Hills Police Station and reported the incident.
\nFollowing inquiries, a 56-year-old man \u2013 who police allege is the property owner \u2013 was arrested about 10.30pm (Wednesday 17 June 2020), at Surry Hills Police Station where he was charged with detain person for advantage.
\nHe was refused bail overnight and appeared in Central Local Court yesterday (Thursday 18 June 2020), where he was conditionally bailed to appear in the Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday 13 August 2020
\nA 57-year-old man was arrested when he presented himself to Surry Hills Police Station about 5pm yesterday; he has now been charged with take\/detain in company with intent to obtain advantage occasioning actual bodily harm.
\nHe has been refused bail to appear in Central Local Court later today (Friday 19 June 2020).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police have charged two men after they allegedly held a tenant against his will when he was unable to pay his rent due to the COVID crisis. Officers from Surry Hills Police Area Command have been told the tenant and a friend arrived at a rental property on Clifton Reserve, Surry Hills, about 3.30pm on … Continue reading “Renter hit by COVID crisis allegedly assaulted, held against his will – Surry Hills”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}