P

The vicious bashing of 85 year-old World War II veteran Eric Brady is a hideous occurrence. Mr Brady has broken left and right jawbones, cracked cheekbones, bruising and swelling to his face and chest, a cut elbow, and a possible fractured eye socket. He was attacked after leaving the Papatoetoe RSA last night.

Such attacks are all too common these days. But the brutality of this one, together with the age and innocence of the victim has lead not to the usual question of “who did this?” but rather of “who could do this?” It’s a fair question; this attack, unprovoked as it was and on a man almost defenceless, defies belief. Nobody of right mind could do it—would do it. But then of course he clearly wasn’t of right mind.

Police are looking for a Maori or Pacific Island man of skinny or athletic build, who was wearing a black or dark coloured top, white trainers and black shorts. It is pure conjecture what he was on, though the mind immediate flies to pure methamphetamine. Very little else leads to such senseless violence. I speak from experience, having on two occasions been in threatening situations due, I am certain, to the presence of P. Neither lead to much, but then again I am not 85 years-old nor, clearly, defenceless.

But is it not the case that P is now so prevalent that all of us have been affected by it—directly or indirectly? I believe so. I also believe that we are long overdue in having an aggressive campaign against it. The government has to step up and stamp out P, with all the resources it can find. And immediately. Otherwise, there is a very real danger of this thing getting out of hand, if it hasn’t already done so.

Mr Brady was in a stable condition in Middlemore Hospital awaiting surgery last night.


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