take from msn/cbc makes me sick…
Canadian wheelchair user beaten in Australia
16-year-old charged with armed robbery, another teen in custody
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 | 10:20 AM ET Comments156Recommend137
CBC News
A 35-year-old Canadian who uses a wheelchair was beaten in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday and is in hospital in serious condition, according to police reports.
The man, whose name has been withheld at the request of family members, is from Manitoba and is in Sydney on an extended trip visiting his girlfriend.
The man was waiting to catch a train at a city train station at about 11 p.m. local time when he was approached and verbally assaulted by two teenage boys, the New South Wales police said on their website.
Police have charged a 16-year-old with intent to cause bodily harm and armed robbery. He was denied bail and remains in custody pending a court date on April 8. A second teenager turned himself in to police on Wednesday at about 7 p.m. local time.
The attack was recorded by security cameras at the station.
A still from video footage captured at the Mt. Druitt train station shows the Canadian man with one of his alleged assailants, right.A still from video footage captured at the Mt. Druitt train station shows the Canadian man with one of his alleged assailants, right. (CCTV/City Rail)
The man tried to leave the station via an elevator, but was punched in the face by one of the boys and knocked from his chair, police said.
“I know he was quite intimidated and the only way for him to escape was by the lift, which unfortunately was where they trapped him and beat him,” his girlfriend, Kristin Sharrock, told CBC News.
The teenagers allegedly then stomped on the man, and hit him on the head and body with metal bars, including one from his wheelchair. They ran away with the man’s belongings and wheelchair, police said, but returned later — and repeatedly — to resume beating him.
The man remains in a hospital northeast of Sydney, where he was being prepared for surgery on Thursday morning to treat severe cuts to his head and a depression to his skull.
“Fortunately there’s no injuries other than a compressed fracture of the skull. All his neurological exams have come back good thank goodness,” said Sharrock.
“All the bruises are starting to appear now, so now pretty much his whole arms and torso are just black and blue from where he defended himself.”
Charges laid
Sharrock said her boyfriend was "awake and lucid and doing quite well under the circumstances, but he’s “distraught, obviously, and very upset, and just can’t believe that it’s happened.”
'I just want him home. I just want him home and safe. I just want to see him.'—Shellan Proden, victim's mother
She said he went to a pub to listen to Doc Walker, a Canadian country music band that was playing in the city. Her boyfriend was on his way home when the beating happened.
He had graduated from high school in Portage la Prairie, Man., located about 70 kilometres west of Winnipeg.
“He’s a kind, generous, strong individual,” Sharrock, fighting back tears, said about her boyfriend. “He doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him.”
Shellan Proden, the mother of the man who was beaten, said she was sick to her stomach when Sharrock told her about the attack.
“I just want him home. I just want him home and safe,” she said from her home in Winnipeg Beach, a town about 65 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
“I just want to see him.”
Motive unknown
The incident “appears to be a random act” and police have not determined a motive, police spokeswoman Joanne Elliott told CBC News.
“[I’ve] never heard of an assault like this ever in [20 years],” Elliott said. “And I know that very, very experienced police who have worked in Sydney’s western suburbs for 20 years … were absolutely appalled by what happened.”
But according to freelance reporter Tim Stackpool, many in the community say this type of beating “was destined to happen.”
“The crime rate there has been going up and up and up and up,” Stackpool told CBC News. “The police have been doing their utmost to keep it under control, but this is a place in Sydney where perhaps there is not a lot for the youth of the streets to … do.”
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/10/sydney-man-beaten.html#ixzz0hmzKpyBY