General News
5 August, 2025
No justice for victim of crime
A WOMAN who was brutally bashed outside her home has been left feeling traumatised and dismissed by the youth justice system and is calling for better treatment of victims of crime.
Rhonda Powell was at her Jacobsen Street address, which she shares with her 99-year-old father, when he was awoken by a group of girls playing extremely loud music from a boom box on the front verge just down the street.
“My father is pretty deaf but the music woke him up and he came out to the front of the house and asked ‘what the hell is that noise?’
“I didn’t want him to be involved in anything so I yelled at them to turn the music down and as soon as I said that, one of the girls made a beeline for me and just punched me straight in the head a couple of times and I fell to the ground,” she said.
“She then grabbed my hair and dragged me to the middle of the road, and she was kind of swinging me around by my hair.
“We ended up back at the gutter and I got her into a lock, then her and her friends asked me to let her go, so I let her go, but then she stood up and stomped me in the chest. At that point, I was in pain on the ground and yelled for someone to call the ambulance.
“She went back across the road, but then came back again and kicked me more times.”
Rhonda, who is 63, suffered broken ribs, a severe gash to her head, eye damage and extensive bruising all over her body from the attack which was captured on CCTV by a nearby service station.
The 16-year-old girl was arrested and charged with assault occasioning bodily harm, but when she faced court, she was only given a “reprimand” and no time in jail.
The whole incident in June last year has left Rhonda with PTSD and feeling vulnerable and anxious – made worse by the ongoing targeting of their home by unknown offenders who leave syringes there and have strewn used sanitary pads and tampons around the front of the yard and at the front door.
On one occasion, a makeshift metal weapon was thrown at the front window, cracking the glass. Rhonda handed the weapon in to police.
Rhonda’s father, Gordon, has now been forced to fork out $22,000 for a security fence to provide them with some protection.
“Dad feels totally useless to protect his daughters, cause that’s what he’s done all his life,” she said.
The 63-year-old has bravely decided to tell her story to make authorities and the community aware of how victims feel, caught up in a process they are not familiar with, and left to deal with ongoing health issues.
“You just feel dismissed, like you don’t matter, and no one really tells you how it all works,” she said.
“I want to warn people that should something like this happen to them, they really should seek legal advice or get legal representation from the outset.”
Rhonda said communication with police during the investigation was lacking and she never had an opportunity to provide a victim impact statement so the court could hear how the attack had affected her.
She was invited to attend a “Restorative Justice Process” conference where she and the perpetrator would sit in a room to discuss the attack, but Rhonda said she was too traumatised to be in a room with the offender and declined to attend.
“I didn’t want to be in the same room as her. I know she has been in juvi (juvenile detention) before and has attacked other people, so I didn’t want to be in that room with her,” she said.
The next thing she heard was that the girl had been given a reprimand, leaving Rhonda feeling gutted that the offender had suffered no penalty for her crime while she still struggled with anxiety, stress and fear.
Rhonda has sent an email outlining what happened to Member for Cook David Kempton to ensure he is aware that other elderly people in Mareeba like herself are suffering at the hands of offenders.
Just last month, a 79-year-old man was brutally attacked in the Mareeba CBD in broad daylight. He was left with two broken arms, internal bleeding, a broken nose and fractured cheekbone. Police are yet to make an arrest.
“Too many elderly people are being targeted in this town and then you find out that the person doesn’t even go to jail,” Rhonda said.
“It just not fair and the victims are left to cope with the fallout.”
