Scone: Elderly couple bashed while putting bins out in front of their Hunter Valley home
Elderly couple Tom Lavelle and his wife Rosemary, from Scone, were attacked by a mystery person as they put their bins out for collection on Australia Day.
Newcastle
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Battered, bruised and sore, with six stitches to the eye, 83-year-old Tom Lavelle is now recovering at home following a senseless attack on himself and his wife Rosemary, 84, outside their Hunter Valley home.
He only wishes he could have done more to have stopped it happening.
“I’m frustrated, I’m so useless. Back in the day I would have dropped them,” Mr Lavelle said.
The elderly couple - who have lived in Scone for 50 years - were putting their rubbish bin out on Guernsey St late at about 10pm on Australia Day when an unknown person, believed to be a woman, started verbally abusing them from across the road.
“I sat up watching the Australia Day concert and realised I needed to put the bins out,” Mr Lavelle recalled.
“I went out and someone across the road said to me ‘you people’.”
“I said ‘what’s your problem?’”
That’s when the attacker crossed the street, charged at the couple before picking up the bin and smashing it into Mr Lavelle’s head.
He was punched to the ground and kicked to the head, while Mrs Lavelle was also pushed to the ground, before the attacker fled.
“I was knocked back and fell near the gutter. It was so quick, it happened in ten seconds,” Mr Lavelle said.
He told The Newcastle News it was dark and hard to identify whether the attacker was a man or a woman.
Despite being injured, with a severe cut to his eye which was bleeding heavily, leg injuries and a laceration to the head, he was able to get up, go inside and call triple-0 for help.
Mr Lavelle and his wife were taken to Scone Hospital for treatment before Mr Lavelle was taken to Maitland Hospital for a CT scan to check for any bleeding on the brain.
Back at home recovering on Tuesday, Mr Lavelle — who suffers from polymyalgia, an inflammatory disorder causing muscle pain and stiffness — said he was still very “wonky” and just trying to take it easy.
He said police had taken a statement from them earlier and also taken the bin for forensic testing for blood and fingerprints.
At this stage the attacker is unknown, but Hunter Valley detectives are appealing for public assistance for any information into the horrific incident, as investigations continue into what happened on Sunday.
Neighbours said there wasn’t usually much trouble in the street except sometimes late on Friday and Saturday nights when the local RSL down the road closed.
“You would never come out the front,” a neighbour said.
“Sometimes they would come through and they could pull letterboxes apart and make noise.”
The appalling incident has also created outrage among the community.
“Why do so many people have no respect for their elders? Seriously makes me sick,” one Facebook user said.
“Horrific, imagine how frightened they must have been,” another said.
“OMG, cowards,” one Facebook user also commented.