Crime
Five Security Guards Who Viciously Attacked 2 Australian Tourists Escape Arrest
Five security guards shown in video viciously kicking and elbowing two Australian tourists
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PHUKET – The Five security guards shown in video viciously kicking and elbowing two Australian tourists on the Thai resort island of Phuket will escape punishment because the victims have returned home without making police statements.
And conflicting accounts have emerged about what led to the attack outside the White Room nightclub in the Patong entertainment district.
“There is nothing more that we can do,” police Lieutenant Colonel Akanit Danpitaksarn told the Phuket News newspaper.
Aaron, one of the attacked men,said they decided not to go the police in Thailand because they feared being locked up themselves.
Thai police searched for the Australians after a video of the attack went viral on Facebook and asked the Australian embassy in Bangkok to help find them so they could file a complaint.
Phuket police chief Sayan Chanachaiwong told the Phuket News that “right now all the police have is the security guard’s version of what happened …. we really need the two tourists to come in and give us their version of events”.
Aaron denied a police claim the trouble started when his group refused to pay their drinks bill in club after one of them was ordered to leave for taking off his shirt.
“We were standing on the steps of the VIP area and one of the security guards came over and he’s being pretty aggressive from the word go,” Aaron said. “And he grabbed Trev (one of the group) from around the neck and pushed him down the stairs,” he said.
“I went to go in between them and I was king-hit from the side and that’s all I remember.”
But the guards told police said the six-member group denied having any drinks bill and argued with the waiter when the bill came. Police said the guards told them the tourists ignored the waiter and became disruptive after being ordered to leave the club and one of them punched a guard in the face after leaving.
The guards’ version is that they were fighting back when the video was taken. Aaron told ninemsn that not one of the group threw a punch.
“Everyone just got bruises, split lips, lumps on the backs of the head and skin off but no major injuries,” he said.
