An elderly couple claims they were brutally beaten when a pet owner objected to where they were walking their dog at a dog park.
The shocking incident happened when Richard Becker, 78, and his wife Yan Becker took their Border Collie for its regular walk at Fremont Park dog park in the northern Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth East on Monday.
Becker said they were confronted by a man walking his Jack Russell terrier while accompanied by two young children who criticized the elderly couple for walking their border collie in a part of the park reserved for small dogs.
The pensioner claims the altercation soon turned violent.
“He’s right in her (Ms. Becker’s) face and he’s insulting her, so I got up to defend my wife, and he turned around and said, ‘Oh, you’re looking for a fight, right?'” Mr. Becker told 7News. .
And I said ‘yes, if you want it’ and he punched me in the face.
‘He hit me about three or four times… I think he kicked my knee and pushed me.
“While I was on the grass trying to get up, he punched my wife in the face.”
The couple were later treated for facial injuries and shock.
Adelaide man Richard Becker, 78, claims he and his wife were assaulted for allegedly walking their dog in the “wrong part” of the park.
During the incident, Yan Becker took a photograph of the alleged attacker, which was handed over to police.
Becker called his attacker “a nasty man who looks for trouble like it’s his front yard.”
Mrs Becker, who took a photo of the alleged attacker, said she was now too scared to take the dog for a walk in the park again.
The photo has been provided to South Australian Police.
“We showed the photograph to the police and then they looked at it and said, ‘We think we recognize him,'” Mr. Becker said.
Police visited the couple’s home on Tuesday to further investigate the incident.