By NOEL MURPHY
RICHARD Vecoli could hardly have been less prepared for the cowardly boot to the face that fractured his eye socket in two places, tore his lip, smashed up his cheek and ripped the retina in his right eye.
He was sitting with a mate on the Moorabool St footpath, leaning against a 7-Eleven wall head down, texting another friend in the early hours of last Saturday morning when the attack came out of nowhere.
A stocky, fair-headed thug ran at Mr Vecoli and kicked him square in the face with all the full force of his combined weight and speed – without any prior conversation, provocation or warning.
The lean 19-year-old table tennis champion and Australian Open ball boy, soon to begin commerce studies at Deakin University, was badly hurt and shocked.
Luckily he had the good sense to get away to avoid further injury as his attacker remonstrated with Mr Vecoli’s mate.
The assault preceded an horrific assault on a 12-year-old girl just metres away in Geelong’s mall in broad daylight. Video of the later attack received national media attention.
The violence again depicted central Geelong as dangerous, violent and unsafe.
Police Minister Wade Noonan and Deputy Commissioner Lucinda Nolan are meeting with community leaders at Geelong police station today to try to find a solution to the ongoing violence in the heart of the city.
“I’m still in shock,” Mr Vecoli told the Independent this week.
“I go back to watch the footage to see it really happened. I thought there’d be adrenalin but it was just pain, I was spitting out skin from the inside of my lip.
“I have two fractures in my eye socket and tissue damage on my jaw. The specialist said the retina in my right eye was the most swollen he’d seen in a year – all this damage from just one kick.
“We’d left Home House at the same time as about 20 or 30 others. We headed to 7-Eleven to get something to eat.
“I phoned my girlfriend to see if she could give us a lift home but she was sick.
“We’d been talking to some Melbourne blokes who were funny, buying food and then wondering about getting a cab or a friend to pick us up. I had messaged a friend and had sat down and was waiting for his reply.
“I was on the phone and only saw something in my peripheral vision before I felt this foot in the face. I never got a good look and I tried to sprint off as he took a second swing.
“He asked my friend if we were the c…s from the bakery. He said no and the bloke said, ‘Just go home, just go home’.”
Mr Vecoli lost his phone in the incident after it went flying as he dived for cover.
He was told it was taken by an unknown person.
Police described the attacker as caucasian with a stocky build and fair or reddish hair.
He was wearing a dark maroon T-shirt and black shorts.
Police asked anyone with information to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or to lodge a confidential report at crimestoppersvic.com.au
