By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Salesman claimed this was self-defence…
IT JUST doesn’t seem right, said bashed Endeavour Hills 73-year-old grandfather Robert Ikin.
On 15 November police dropped charges against a much younger man who Mr Ikin said repeatedly punched him in the face outside his home and walked away.
The bloodied and bruised Mr Ikin was hospitalised that night of 17 August.
“(The accused) claimed that every time I got up, he felt I was going to attack him,” Mr Ikin said.
“He told police I was hanging on to his clothes, and I was sitting on his laptop (sic).”
“If he calls it self-defence, how come I’ve got all the damage?”
According to Mr Ikin’s statement to police, he had earlier ordered a then-19-year-old electricity salesman to get off his front step and off his property.
The dispute escalated after the man later returned to the nature strip and called out to Mr Ikin.
Mr Ikin walked out and told the man he’d ring the police.
“Why? Do you want to make something of it?” the salesman allegedly said.
Mr Ikin said that he approached the man and was struck twice in the face. He fell and hit the back of his head on the nature strip.
When he got up, he was hit twice more and fell back on his head again, he said.
Mr Ikin walked towards the man’s tablet computer on the ground, saying he was going to find out who the man worked for.
“I think that cost me another hit,” Mr Ikin said.
“He has hit me a couple more times and I’ve gone back down again and I hit my head once again.”
The only known witnesses to the assault were Mr Ikin and the salesman.
Mr Ikin’s wife, Jeanette, who was upstairs watching TV at the time, was thankful that Mr Ikin, who had recently had a heart bypass, didn’t have a heart attack.
“How can a 19-year-old boy think an old man like this can possibly hurt him and feel threatened?”
Mr Ikin isn’t sure if he’ll now receive victims-of-crime compensation that will fund home security measures and his ongoing counselling and physiotherapy.
Treating psychologist Joseph Poznanski said Mr Ikin has since been blighted by chronic post-traumatic stress, insomnia, flashbacks and agitation.
Once a keen morning walker, Mr Ikin now shuns public places and feels unsafe in his home, Dr Poznanski said.
“Justice needs to be achieved in order to feel healed.”
In August, in a wave of publicity, police called for information about the incident and the accused, an electricity door-to-door salesman, who police said was accused of repeatedly punching Mr Ikin in the face outside his home before he fled.
A police officer told media at the time that it was “outrageous” how the incident had escalated.
In a statement on Wednesday 23 November, Victoria Police stated there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the charges.
The youth is believed to have been set to plead not guilty on the grounds of self-defence.
Victims of Crime advocate Noel McNamara said the dropping of the charges was “unbelievable”.
Mr McNamara said it reminded him of men using defensive homicide to mitigate them killing their wives.
“I haven’t heard self-defence being used in this way,” he said.
