Police investigating alleged violent bashing on Tin Can Bay houseboat

A Queensland woman has shared disturbing details of how she and her husband were allegedly attacked and bashed by a man who forced them to flee their houseboat.

Tin Can Bay resident Tim Robertson suffered multiple injuries in an alleged attack which happened while he and his wife Jo-Anne were on their houseboat at the coastal town on April 4, 2024.

Police are investigating shocking allegations a Cooloola Coast couple were violently attacked and bashed by a man who stormed their houseboat, forcing them to flee.

The allegations of the attack at Tin Can Bay on Thursday were shared by one of the victims, Jo-Anne Robertson.

Mrs Robertson shared an image of her husband, Tim, sporting multiple bruises and covered in blood.

Speaking Friday, Mrs Robertson opened up about the shocking 10-minute ordeal which left her and her “too scared to go back (to the boat)”.

She said the alleged attacker stormed the boat, which had been shifted onto ground at Snapper Creek for emergency repairs on a hole earlier in the week, grabbed her by her hair and threw her overboard.

He then allegedly entered part of the boat Tim was in, and began bashing him.

Mrs Robertson climbed back onto the boat, she said, to try and stop the fight.

It was this point the man allegedly “king hit” her in the back of the head “a number of times”, forcing her back out.

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Jo-Anne Robertson said she and her husband Tim Robertson had put their houseboat on the banks of Snapper Creek to try and fix a hole in it. Photo Craig Warhurst / Gympie Times

The man allegedly then returned to his attention to Tim.

“I could hear my husband screaming … I was really, really scared for him,” Mrs Robertson said.

Tim finally managed to jump off the boat and onto the creek’s mudflats.

She followed him overboard, and said the alleged attacker then pursued them up the creek until a neighbour intervened.

The neighbour offered the Roberstons shelter at his home, she said, and from there they phoned emergency crews and were taken to Gympie Hospital.

She said Tim suffered a “broken nose, badly damaged eye, (and) bruised ribs” while she was left with “contusions” on the back of her head.

Mrs Robertson said the boat, which they returned to Friday morning with police to try and recover their two cats, had “blood spatter everywhere” inside.

Only one of their two cats was recovered; the other remains missing.

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Jo-Anne Robertson said her and her husband Tim were forced to flee their houseboat during the alleged attack, escaping across mudflats at the town before a neighbour intervened.

The ordeal had left them badly shaken., and they were now camped in bushland in an effort to stay safe.

“We’re afraid in our own town,” Mrs Robertson said.

“We’re too scared to go back.”

The couple, parents of three sons, had been Tin Can Bay residents since 2001.

They moved onto the houseboat in 2022.

She believed the attack was sparked by the location they chose to try and fix the boat.

Police said Friday they are investigating an alleged attack on a Tin Can Bay couple, a 61-year-old man and a 59-year-old woman, “shortly before 8am”.

“Police continue to investigate the circumstances around the incident,” police said.

“Anyone with information is urged to come forward.”

Originally published as Police investigating alleged violent bashing on Tin Can Bay houseboat