A brave Byford grandmother has spoken out about the ongoing violence in her neighbourhood after local family members savagely bashed her last Friday evening.
Kim Dawson told The Examiner that after years of being tormented she has had enough and decided someone needed to speak out.
“It’s been ongoing for years with these children, tormenting me and my children,” she said.
“They were out the front here calling me names…dirty slut and whore and all the rest of the things.
“My partner went over there to chase them off on his bike and they disappeared and didn’t come back so I went around the corner and the kids were out the front of their house.
“I told them to get their mother and their mother came out and it just went from there, she just came up to me and gave me a bit of a shove and told me to get back into my car and I told her to pull her kids into line.”
That’s when things went from bad to worse for the 52-year-old grandmother.
“She’s come right up into my face and I asked her to get away and after that the lot of them were just on me and against my car.
“Once they got me on the floor, the mother I think was sitting on my back and holding me down with my arms by my side and the other kid just kept stomping me in the face. I didn’t even see him coming.
“I saw him run and every time I felt a blow I saw him run away but I never saw the blow coming and sort of stomped there on top of my head, that’s why my eyes are black.
“The other boy, I’m not quite sure, someone else has kicked me from this side while the girl’s punching me and the mother’s just sitting there holding me so she can.”
Kim Dawson said she was set upon by three of the family members, which included a 14-year-old boy, a 17-year old girl and a woman in her late 30s to early 40s.
“She backed them and virtually egged it on,” she said.
“When I said get away from me she virtually said to the boys ‘oh look she hit your mum’ – she wanted them to do it. She said that about five times.”
Kim Dawson said this isn’t the first time she and her neighbours have had trouble with the family.
“Everyone in this estate has this issue with them.
“They have taught those kids that if there is a fight on with mum or dad, you just get in there because you’re family.”
“They throw rocks at cars, the graffiti at cars and they have bashed my boys and they’ve spat at me.
“It affects everyone in Byford but they won’t speak out because they (the family) say they’ll get bikies onto them.
“They reckon they have relatives who are bikies who will go through your house, no one goes there so no one will take them on or tackle them.”
Kim Dawson said she felt something needed to be done.
“I have had enough, we have been to the police that many times, the kids get away with it each time and they are back here the next day taunting and laughing at you, so I don’t see much gets done at all.
“The kids haven’t been to school since the end of grade six – they aren’t allowed to go to the local school.
“Everyone is involved, including Department of Child Protection, the Education Department but they don’t care.
“According to the police there are 100 charges against them.
“I am the victim but this affects everyone else in the local community as well because there are nice people in this neighbourhood and it’s affecting them too.”
When asked what needs to be done about the situation, Kim Dawson is upfront.
“These kids need to be put into some sort of detention or taken away from that family because they are not being looked after.
“They are roaming the streets at two or three o’clock in the morning and they have been banned from every shop in the local area and the petrol stations.
Kim Dawson has already spoken to police and after viewing footage of the incident Cannington Detectives have charged a 14-year-old boy with Act or Omission Causing Bodily Harm in relation to the incident.
The 14-year-old boy from Byford appeared before the Perth Children’s Court on Monday.
