Police hunt for teenage thugs

POLICE are hunting for a group of bandana-clad teenagers in Masterton suspected of attacking and injuring a naval cadet on the street last weekend.
Witnesses were stunned when they saw a masked man attack their friend in town on Saturday night.
The 18-year-old trainee sailor, from Masterton, had two teeth broken and needed 11 stitches to cuts to his lips and mouth after being attacked.
One of his friends who spoke out about the attack said yesterday she later had an encounter of her own with the suspected assailants.
"I don't understand why someone would do something like that, especially when you don't even know them. It's horrible," she said.
"They need to be taught, because they are just going to do it again. Imagine in five years time, they will probably have guns or something."
She said just before the attack on the naval cadet, she was walking with her friends on Chapel Street about 11.30pm on Saturday when a group of about eight boys wearing bandanas and hoods appeared behind them on the street.
Two of her group were walking about 20m ahead of the other six. She said the gang of blue-bandana-wearing youths behind them crossed the street and were walking on the opposite side of the road, near McDonalds restaurant
Then one of them crossed back over between her and the couple in front.
"He went up to the guy and said 'that's us then' and smacked him in the face."
She said she knows who the boys are because she and a friend encountered them yesterday afternoon in central Masterton. The two women who had witnessed the bashing were lunching at a Queen Street cafe when the group of boys passed by and said, 'that's us then' and cracked up laughing.
"They must have recognised us and just said it to piss us off."
She described them as 15 to 16 years old, Maori, and wearing loose pants and hooded tops.
After the Saturday assault the naval cadet was taken to Masterton Hospital.
Police took statements from the group of witnesses while at the hospital, and told them they had "a fair idea" of who the offenders might be and that they would go to find them.
"The cops were pretty good about it. They said they would find out who they are and see what they could do,"
The victim had to have five stitches to his upper lip, six in his bottom lip, and suffered broken tooth and a cracked tooth. He was due to go back on navy duty on Sunday but was unable to return to his post until Tuesday because of his injuries.