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The Italian lies on a Patong soi after allegedly being attacked by a guard

Photo by phuketwan.com

Golf Club Attack on Phuket Tourist: Patong Bar Guard Told to Give Himself Up

By Sert Tongdee and Chutima Sidasathian

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

PHUKET: The owner of a Phuket bar has been ordered to report to Patong police - with a security guard who allegedly struck an Italian tourist over the head with a golf club in a violent attack this week.

The assault, latest in a string of brutal reprisals meted out by Patong locals, left an Italian tourist with a head wound that later required stitches at a Phuket hospital.

Lieutenant Partya Jansomwong of Kathu Police Station, which oversees the Phuket nightlife centre of Patong on the popular west coast, called yesterday on the owner of the bar and the security guard to turn themselves in immediately.

Two Italian tourists were attacked about 4am on Monday at the intesection of Soi Seadragon - a lane of bars - with Soi Bangla, Patong's after-dark walking street.

The two Italian men had broken an empty bottle on a chair, making a loud noise that brought the golf club attack.

Lieutenant Partya, deputy director of investigations at Kathu station, told a meeting of owners of bars, nightclubs and other venues yesterday that the bar owner and guard involved had to surrender to police or face arrest.

The lieutenant said that people under 18 had to be kept out of venues, and that all bars needed security to make sure they were kept free of drugs and people carrying weapons.

Monday's early morning violence follows a series of incidents this year in Patong in which locals have taken the law into their own hands.

Two Australians were stabbed in February in a case that was later described as attempted murder, a so-called ''dog pack attack'' over a 100 baht tuk-tuk fare left a German expat resident in a coma, and two Dutchmen suffered a beating after damaging another tuk-tuk.

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Why bother arresting them you will only allow them to go free " pending " investigation when we all know the outcome, the tourist will get the blame, and another attack will go unpunished. How many attackers have been charged with anything?

Posted by Wiliam Dale on October 19, 2011 09:17

Yep
The attacker will counter-charge the tourist, whose passport will be taken from him. Then the tourist has a choice of staying on in Thailand for a year or so (getting prosecuted for overstaying his Visa in the process) and fight the case in the courts. Or he will say I'm sorry and leave Thailand as planned and forget about the whole thing. Otherwise the attacker will just stay away until the tourist has to go home and reappear like nothing ever happened, and since the tourist is not here anymore to pursue the case, absolutely nothing will happen.

Posted by christian on October 19, 2011 10:13

Why not arrest them anyway, don't give them the option of handing themselves in OR face arrest. Amazing Phuket

Posted by phuket madness on October 19, 2011 10:19

(moderated)

Posted by Mario on October 19, 2011 19:49

Editor Comment:

I don't even need to say anything, Mario. You know what you are.

Christian summed it up pretty well. most I can add is that the golf club will become part of the symbolic decor of the bar.

Posted by JingJing on October 20, 2011 05:32

If tourist confidence is to be maintained (most Thai people don't realise how threatened it is nor how much the regional economy relies on it) then the police need to be pro-active in cases involving tourists. Get out there and make arrests, show people that they are safe here, there there is the governance of law.

Posted by CaptainJack on October 20, 2011 11:32

Editor, I see you do not believe in allowing your readers to have freedom of speech. Shame on you. So why bother to have a comments section at all? It must consume hours of your day, since you often like to make your own biased judgements on comments that as the moral police you disapprove of. Your job is an editor but you seem to think you are the judge and the jury too.

Posted by Mario on October 20, 2011 16:18

Editor Comment:

Journalists are not judges or juries, Mario. Have you spent a lot of time in the court system? Freedom of speech does not apply on this site nor in democracies to those who don't understand what freedom means. Those who abuse it and abuse others without logic or reason have no right to freedom of speech. Whether my comments are biased is entirely for you and others to judge. Whether your comments are fit for publication is, fortunately for everyone, entirely up to me.

Monday May 21, 2012

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Golf Club Attack on Phuket Tourist: Patong Bar Guard Told to Give Himself Up

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