Bruised but unbeaten

Elderly lady stood up to tradie’s attack

AN ELDERLY Goldsborough woman who stood up to a violent panelbeater said she wants to put the episode behind her.

Patricia Napier, 74, was left with a black eye, is $10,000 out of pocket and has been left with a patchwork paint job on her car – and all she wanted was the same shade of white.

“I just want to move on,” Ms Napier said outside Cairns Magistrates Court.

She told the court that Edmonton panelbeater Scott Robertson, 56, struck her across the face in his Edmonton work shop on February 13.

“He kept swearing and throwing tools, slamming the doors of my car,” she said

“I said ‘stop it, you’re behaving like an animal’.”

Ms Napier told the court Mr Robertson “got really aggressive, telling me to f--- off”.

She told Robertson she would not leave until her car was fixed.

“He said ‘you’ll go all right’,” she told the court. “He backhanded me across my face.”

After initially contesting a charge of seriously assaulting a person aged over 60 years, Robertson changed his plea to guilty after hearing Ms Napier’s evidence.

Ms Napier told the court she fell into steel shelving after the blow.

“I said ‘only a bastard hits women’.”

She said by the time she reported the alleged assault to police, her face had bruised.

“… I could not believe what had happened.”

She said the defendant worked on her car in June, July and August 2018 for $10,000.

“I wasn’t happy with the paint – the doors, the roof and the bonnet were a different shade of white,” Ms Napier said.

She alleged she returned the car to Robertson on several occasions from October to the day in question to respray and then to repair doors that would not lock and windows that would not open.

Prosecutor Senior Constable Trevor Woodman said the assault was a “cowardly, unprovoked, deplorable act on an elderly woman who trusted him to fix her car”.

The court heard the assault was “out of character” for Robertson, who deplored violence.

Magistrate Janelle Brassington said Ms Napier had been “vindicated” by Robertson’s guilty plea.

She sentenced Robertson to nine months in jail, to be wholly suspended for 18 months, and ordered he pay $1000 in compensation.