Intruders beat Kawakawa railway volunteer

Bloodied (but far from beaten), Mike Bradshaw is helped into a police car for the short trip to hospital. Ward Jameson

Feeding the railway station cat on Saturday morning should have been the simplest of tasks for 78-year-old Bay of Islands Vintage Railway Trust stalwart Mike Bradshaw, but it wasn't.

When he entered the engineering workshop, at around 8.30am, he found himself facing four intruders, who beat him to the floor then kicked him on the ground before running away.

"There were seven of them all told, from mid to late teens to early adulthood, but I had the shovel," Mr Bradshaw said.

Mike Bradshaw with dog Pero.

He had been able to reach it as he lay on the floor being kicked, and "waved" it at his assailants with sufficient authority to see them off. One of the intruders will be sporting some degree of facial damage, and police in Kawakawa would be very pleased to hear from anyone who knows him.

Mr Bradshaw said he initially startled three intruders in the engine shed. They ran off, but when he entered the engineering workshop he found four more ransacking the cupboards.

They attacked him before fleeing, leaving him with a bleeding head wound and damaged ribs.

"The ribs are the worst of it," he said yesterday, back at work. "I will be back to my beautiful self in a week, but the ribs are hurting when I laugh."

The attack has outraged trust chairman Johnson Davis, who expressed "absolute abhorrence and disgust at this cowardly attack" on behalf of the trustees, members, volunteers and supporters of the vintage railway.

"Mike could well have suffered very severe injuries," he said.

"We all know that there is a severe shortage of police, not only in Kawakawa, so it is with real relief that we see that in the next four years there will be some 66 new police appointed in Northland. The big question is, what happens meantime?

"Our volunteers, and not just those at BOIVR, need better support from their community. After all, they are freely providing their services for the betterment of their/our community.

Someone will know who these scum are. So please inform the police so they can be called to account for their cowardly actions, and also, hopefully, help turn them around so they can become better members of our/their community."

Mayor John Carter described the attack as scandalous. Mr Bradshaw was the salt of the Earth, he said, the sort of person society revolved around.

"The whole community should be absolutely outraged. I hope someone who knows who they are has the decency to front up," he said. Grandmothers and aunties had reported their own family members after recent incidents in Kaikohe, and he hoped to see the same happen in Kawakawa.

Meanwhile Grubby the cat did not miss out on breakfast. Mr Bradshaw served it the first meal of the day while he was waiting for the police and an ambulance to arrive.