By NOEL MURPHY
MALL BASHING victim Richard Vecoli fears he has sustained permanent damage to his sight following medical checks.
The Independent reported last week how a thug had kicked the Bell Park 19-year-old’s face in an allegedly unprovoked attack, causing facial fractures and retina damage.
“I have been given the bad news that I have lost 50 per cent of my vision in my right eye,” Mr Vecoli posted to social media this week.
“It is highly likely that it will stay like this for the rest of my life due to a crack in my retina (that) doesn’t usually heal.
“However, there is a very small chance that the crack will heal over in two to four months time and I will get my vision back, so I’m holding onto that chance like there’s no tomorrow.”
The university student was sitting with a mate on a Moorabool St footpath, leaning against the 7-Eleven wall head down, texting another friend in the early hours of 17 January when he was attacked.
A teenage tennis and table tennis champion and an Australian Open ball boy, he is due to commerce studies at Deakin University this year.
The assault was one of two high-profile such attacks in the mall, the other in broad daylight drawing the attention of Police Minister Wade Noonan and Deputy Commissioner Lucinda Nolan before undertakings for more police patrols through the city.
A 19-year-old man presented himself to police on Tuesday in relation to the incident involving Mr Vecoli.
Police charged the man with recklessly cause serious injury and other assault offences.
