After a stranger punched her in the face while she was walking down the street, a grandmother of twelve is too traumatized to leave her house.
Virginia Beckworth, 79, had just stepped out of her car in Dandenong, Melbourne’s southeast, at 10 a.m. on June 14 when an unknown man approached her and demanded money.
Ms Beckworth declined before the man said he was going to give her “one of those one-man king hits” and unleashed a vicious punch that dropped her to the ground.
‘I thought I was going to wake up with a brain injury, I feared for my life,’ she told Nine News.
‘(The punch) just got me and threw me around the back of the car onto the footpath.’
Ms Beckworth suffered a concussion and hearing loss, and a disturbing photograph revealed black bruises beneath her right eye.
She has been unable to sleep since the heinous attack that has ‘haunted’ her.
‘When I go to bed at night, I shut my eyes and I see his face straight away coming towards me – that he’s going to get me again,’ she said.
Ms Beckworth claimed that after being knocked to the ground, the man vowed to attack her again.
She ran and hid in a nearby barbershop to escape.
‘I was hysterical. I couldn’t stop shaking,’ she told 3AW.
The 79-year-old grandmother was brought to Dandenong Hospital and was diagnosed with a concussion.
She has had bruising and swelling, as well as severe headaches and hearing loss, since the incident.
Police have collected CCTV footage of the individual, who is described as tall and of a large build, but no arrests have been made.
At the time of the incident, he was wearing a lime green beanie, and Ms Beckworth characterized him as Maori.
Ms Beckworth expressed her hope that the guy is apprehended “before he gets anybody else.”
Anyone with information on the attack is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers.
Police are investigating.