Melbourne commuter who was punched says emergency intercom, CCTV failed to work
A man attacked on a subway train has questioned whether passengers can trust security systems after discovering that the emergency intercom and CCTV in his carriage were not working when he was attacked.
Paul Hughan was driving from Yarraville to Flinders Street just after 4pm on December 12 when a man acting erratically sat behind him. Hughan said he ignored the man until he realized he had spat on him.
“When I realized what was happening, I jumped up and turned around. He looked at me for a while, then jumped up and punched me in the face,” he said.
The 56-year-old man said the punch had all the force of a “wet sock” and he was not injured.
But he is more concerned about serious failures in emergency systems that are in place to protect passengers in an emergency but fail when needed.
During the train journey, Hughan attempted to activate the passenger emergency intercom in his carriage three or four times. Each time, he responded with a recorded message stating that the service was “currently unavailable.”
Intercoms are supposed to connect passengers to the driver; The driver can then ask Metro’s train control center to coordinate emergency services response.
When Hughan later reported the attack to police, investigators told him they were unable to access footage from inside the train carriage due to a CCTV system malfunction.
“You assume things work. If I knew [the CCTV] If it hadn’t worked, I would have taken a photo of the guy. It’s not just the setup that frustrates me, it’s that you rely on that setup and it doesn’t work,” Hughan said.
“He spit on me and punched me in the face. But he was sitting behind me. What if he tries to stab me in the back?”
The safety of the public transport network has come to the fore again after four teenagers allegedly stabbed 22-year-old Aidan Becker to death at Mernda station earlier this month.
This also comes after the state government announced last year that it would redeploy protective service officers (PSOs) to work longer hours at 32 “high risk” railway stations; The 120 “low crime rate” stations will be serviced by mobile teams rather than permanent night patrols.
According to the Crime Statistics Agency, in the year ending September 2025, Victoria Police recorded 381 crimes against individuals, including assault, harassment and robbery on trains, and 1,575 at railway stations.
Metro later told Hughan that it had discovered a fault in the unit powering the CCTV and intercom recorder on his train, which meant there was no footage of the incident and could not determine why the intercom was not working.
Metro added that drivers will not always be able to respond to the intercom if they are busy with driving duties or are already on a call with the network control center.
Police were eventually able to obtain CCTV of Hughan’s attacker landing at Southern Cross Station, but the footage was of poor quality.
Hughan said he called Triple Zero when he gave up on the intercom and had to wait for a police officer to call him. At that time, the criminal got off the train.
“I was hoping someone would meet us on the platform. Instead there was no one there… and after the train had left and was almost at Flinders Street I got a call back,” he said.
“All I got was a call back from an officer telling me to report it to the PSOs on Flinders Street. It all seems so unco-ordinated.”
A Metro spokesman said emergency intercoms were tested daily, but malfunctions could occur while the train was in service.
“We have over 14,000 CCTV cameras across the Metro Trains network, as well as our officers and station staff working to ensure the safety of passengers,” they said.
Metro’s Security Operations Center monitors the station’s CCTV 24 hours a day, and on newer train models can watch a live feed of onboard CCTV. However, remote monitoring is not possible on the oldest Comeng and X’Trapolis trains.
Monash University transport researcher Rumana Sarker said CCTV and emergency intercoms played an important role in making passengers feel safe on public transport.
“We got the impression that there was someone looking at us, watching us if anything happened. But it must be working,” he said. But human presence like PSOs is more effective in making passengers, especially women, feel comfortable, Sarker said.
A Victoria Police spokesman said officers prioritized calls from Triple Zero and could seek assistance from both police units and PSOs.
Start your day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Patrick Hatch is a transport correspondent for The Age and a former business correspondent.Connect with: X or email.
