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Parents are being urged to restrain their teenagers as admirers of Corey Delaney, the boy reveller who acquired international notoriety, compete to host Australia's wildest party.
A spate of recent events that have ended in near-riots has prompted police to plead for private crowd management at such parties, while a state premier has raised the possibility of penalties for parents.
The latest pretender to the Delaney crown is Kevin Ottaviano, whose 16th birthday party spiralled out of control at the weekend, resulting in charges for nine youths. Fifteen police cars took three hours to restore order after 250 teenagers turned up uninvited and started drinking and brawling.
Kevin, whose oversize white baseball cap has become his trademark equivalent of Corey's yellow shades, said that others had hijacked his party in Townsville, 1,300km (810 miles) north of Brisbane, by promoting it on the internet. “There is so much [sic] people who want to be competing with that Corey fella, in Townsville especially, all the kids want to have the biggest party,” he said. “There will be larger ones than this party.”
Farther north, another 16th birthday bash was invaded, prompting neighbours to call for police to subdue the rowdy crowd of 600. That incident paled in comparison with an earlier event in another Cairns neighbourhood, when the dog squad was called to disperse hundreds of drunken underage revellers, some as young as 12.
The Bauer family, who hosted the party for their 16-year-old son Ben, insisted that they had taken extra precautions, telling the police about the party and issuing 200 wristbands to invited guests. Five hundred turned up.
The Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, said this week that she would consider penalties for parents who recklessly supplied alcohol to underage revellers. In a further twist, police were called to a leafy Sydney neighbourhood where Tony Abbott, a former federal health minister, lives after 200 teenagers gatecrashed his daughter's 15th birthday party.
Michael Carr-Gregg, a psychologist, said there was no doubt that Corey had inspired copycats. The Melbourne teenager made headlines worldwide when he ran up a damage bill of A$20,000 (£9,000) after a party at his parents' house turned into a near-riot. “It is very much a case of 'monkey see, monkey do',” Dr Carr-Gregg said.
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