$ 100K FOR JUSTICE
Exclusive Reward offered to find cop coward puncher
A DECADE after a policewoman was left with permanent facial damage following a coward punch attack, a $ 100,000 reward has been offered to find her attacker.
Early on July 4, 2007, then Constable Tenelle Luscombe and her partner rushed to Flinders St responding to reports of a brawl in a carpark.
What they found were 80 people fighting and, while trying to break up the brawl, Constable Luscombe was felled by a coward punch that has changed her life. The now Senior Constable lives with a metal plate in her face and a haunting memory of the assault.
A DECADE after a policewoman was king hit and left with permanent facial damage, a $ 100,000 reward has been offered in an attempt to find her attacker.
In the early hours of July 4, 2007, Constable Tenelle Luscombe and her partner rushed to Flinders St, following reports of a brawl in a carpark.
What they found were about 80 people fighting and while trying to break up the brawl, Constable Luscombe was king hit, a punch that has changed her life.
Now, 10 years later, police are offering a $ 100,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction of the attacker who left, the now Senior Constable with a metal plate in her face and the haunting memory of the assault.
Senior Constable Luscombe, now based in Weipa, spoke to the Bulletin about the attack that changed her life.
“I still remember it very vividly,” she said.
“We got a call for a disturbance on Flinders St, but when we got in there, the carpark across from the nightclubs, was just full of people fighting, I reckon 60 to 80 people, just spot fights everywhere,” she said.
“My partner and I were trying to stop some fights and I was talking to someone and someone reached around me and started uppercutting the guy who I was talking to and I got pushed out of that little fight.
“Then I just felt a smack to the head. I had no idea what had happened. It knocked me back a couple of steps and I crouched down and realised I’d been hit.”
Sen- Constable Luscombe was forced to undergo facial reconstruction that has left her with nerve damage.
“I had a fractured eye socket, a fractured cheek bone, the floor of my eye socket was shattered and there was a fracture in my jaw,” she said
“The entire right side of my face was basically fractured.
“I had to have an operation which required 26 staples over the top of my head and they inserted six plates and so many screws to hold it, which is still in there right now and I still have nerve damage in my face that gets pins and needles still.
“I try to move on. It doesn’t affect the job I do. I don’t hesitate to go into any situation because of it, but certainly when I do think of it, I still get upset.
“I was 26 when it happened, I was new to the job. For that to happen to a young female new to her job, it’s pretty upsetting and pretty devastating. It shouldn’t happen.”
Sen- Constable Luscombe said she needed closure and wanted the person who hit her to come forward.
“I’m assuming they’ve got a conscience and they might want to clear that up,” SenConstable Luscombe said.
“It’s been 10 years and they’ve been carrying that around with them.
“It would be nice for anyone to come forward with information … I’d like to know, just for closure, who did it.
“Someone out there knows information about it.”
Townsville CIB detective Sergeant Kay Osborn is leading the investigation and said police had never stopped investigating the horrific assault and were keen to get new information.
“We have got to do everything we possibly can to get a result, and potentially some of the people involved might not be the type to come forward of their own volition,” Sgt Osborn said.
“However if you dangle a carrot in front of them, it might assist.
“Absolutely there are people out there who know the person who has done this. I am appealing to them now, come forward, clear your conscience.”
Police Minister Mark Ryan said he hoped the reward would prompt someone to give information.
“Senior Constable Luscombe was simply doing her job” Mr Ryan said.
“I have approved this reward in the hope that it will prompt someone out there in the community who has been sitting on information about this case for years to finally come forward.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.