Former Zimbabwean white farmer bashed unconscious in Australia

By Dan Proudman

AUSTRALIA – John Mitchell-Adams has faced some tough battles in his day – he was a white Zimbabwean farmer kicked off his land in the 1980s by the brutal Mugabe regime and is already back bouncing around only a few months since open heart surgery.

Even at 71, Mr Mitchell-Adams refuses to be a shrinking violet.

But police and his friends remain horrified that the Nelson Bay man was bashed unconscious and kicked by a group of nameless thugs as he attempted to walk his Maltese terriers with his wife, Hilary Horan, along the town’s foreshore.

Mr Mitchell-Adams was attacked and left bruised and bloodied because he told an out-of-control man to stop exposing his genitals to his 61-year-old wife and cease from yelling obscenities at her and others.

Port Stephens detectives have now released images of the main attacker and the car he and his cowardly mates left in after the July 5 bashing – complete with identifying stickers on the back window.

‘‘People have often said to me, why didn’t you just leave it,’’ Mr Mitchell-Adams said.

‘‘If the whole world continues to watch that kind of behaviour and do nothing about it then we live in extraordinarily sick society.

‘‘And my attitude is if I had to get a clock on the head as a consequence of it, well that is the price you pay.

‘‘I am not going to stand by and watch my wife being abused by four bloody hoodlums who were behaving in an extraordinarily bad manner.’’

The couple were walking along the Nelson Bay foreshore when the main attacker started exposing himself and yelling obscenities. When Mr Mitchell-Adams stood up for himself and his wife, he was threatened before being attacked.

‘‘And then he let fly and just came flying in,’’ he said.

‘‘So obviously I did what I could to protect myself but the other three were now running at me as well. ‘He obviously hit me across the face, cut my lip, and also on my head and I must have hit my head on the ground because I had a very sorry back of the head. But it knocked me out.’’

A visiting couple came to their aid, the man helping keep the men off an unconscious Mr Mitchell-Adams while the tourist’s wife took photographs. Police are also investigating how the thugs simply ripped off the number plates on the ute before leaving.

Stickers on the rear windscreen included large prints reading ‘‘fusion’’ and ‘‘ministry’’. Information can be forwarded to Raymond Terrace police or Crime Stoppers. Newscastle Herald