A 21-YEAR-OLD Soesdyke-Linden Highway farmer returning home after partying on Boxing Night, was intercepted around 04:45hrs by two men who severely beat and chopped him, before making off with the little money he had remaining on him.

Raphael Fredericks, formerly of Hosororo Hill, North West District, conceded that the men might have mistaken him for his brother, who had recently come out of the ‘gold-bush’, and may have had quite a sum on him.
He recalled they were not only dressed alike, in orange trousers and white jerseys, but that his brother looks a lot like him. Luckily for the brother that night, he did not accompany Raphael back home, but went his own way. So did a cousin, who was to accompany him when he and his brother parted company; he too diverted soon after, leaving Raphael to go it alone.
Raphael said that his parents still live in the North West District, but he resides with a sister at Coverden, on the upper East Bank, and farms on the Highway.
At the time of the attack, he said, he was on a lonely road in the vicinity of Swan Village, on the Highway. “They wanted money,” he said, “but I didn’t have much on me after partying whole night.”
Raphael sustained a long and deep chop to his left shoulder, and other chops and abrasions to his face and head.

(By Shirley Thomas)