Youths brutally beat 71-year-old
Passerby intervenes after seeing great-grandfather under attack
He was simply worried about the bus stop getting damaged but it resulted in a Hamilton greatgrandfather getting brutally beaten and left bloodied on the ground.
The 71-year-old, who was too frightened to be named, said he’d recently had a double knee replacement operation.
As part of his recovery, his doctor had told him to go for regular walks to build up the strength in his legs again.
About 4.30pm on Friday, he left his Bankwood Rd unit and heard some banging coming from the nearby bus shelter.
“I was standing there and these kids were in the bus stop and were banging, trying to wreck it.
“I went up to them and said ‘Hey, don’t do that, there are some old people behind there and they are sick.’ The older, aggressive, one said ‘ what the f*** are you going to do about it’. I walked up to him and said ‘listen ... ’ and he threw punches at me.”
The great-grandfather of three said he was trying to calm the young man down when all of a sudden his fragile knees suddenly buckled and he fell to the ground.
“I saw him kick and I managed to cover my eye with my hand.”
It didn’t stop his attacker though, who continued to kick and punch him as he lay defenceless on the ground.
“Then they took off and I got up and [was trying to] get my balance and they came back.”
They grabbed a steel rubbish bin and slammed it on the back of his head as he was walking away.
“That’s when I went down again, because of my knees.”
They started kicking him again, on the ground, but that’s when Hamilton father Doug Beall happened to be driving by.
Beall says he initially thought the boys were helping the man up. But then he saw blows were being thrown.
“I realised these boys were beating this old man . . . with a steel trash can . . . and a metal scooter. Kicking him directly in the face repeatedly and literally beating him to death.
“I sped up my car to get to the scene as fast as possible and slammed on the brakes, hit my horn to create a distrac- tion, leaped out of the car and the boys ran away.”
He immediately emergency services.
Police have since spoken to the four youths who were involved and although they couldn’t confirm their ages, they were estimated to range in age from 12 to 16. They have been referred to Youth Aid.
After the shock of what he’d seen, Beall realised there were a number of vehicles that had driven past the retiree as he was getting beaten.
“It’s your obligation as a human being that if you see something happening you have to help. You also need to ensure your own safety first but if you can do something to stop something from happening you should.”
He appreciated many of the witnesses were senior citizens.
He didn’t want to make a big deal of his actions, but a post he put on Facebook had since gone global.
“I’m getting messages from all around the world.”
But it’s not only those from afar who appreciated what he did — but also the victim and his wife.
“If it wasn’t for him it would have got worse,” she said.
The man said it had made them feel uneasy about living there and his walks now didn’t extend any further than the communal driveway of their unit complex. called