Yobs attack couple with hail of stones (From Dorset Echo)

Yobs attack couple with hail of stones

9:47am Monday 21st July 2008

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TEENAGE yobs pelted a couple with stones as they sat down to enjoy a barbecue on Weymouth Beach.

Burt Hilton and his wife June say they now no longer want to use their £240 a year hut for fear of further attacks.

Retired warehouse manager Mr Hilton said one of the stones, weighing half a pound, struck him on the chest and narrowly missed June's head.

Mr Hilton, 74, of Preston, Weymouth, said he and June were sitting two huts down on the seafront from a group of teenagers when the trouble began.

He said: "June and I had just got down to the beach with a disposable barbecue and some food.

"We had just started cooking when these stones started pinging off our hut.

"I was sat out by a windbreaker and one of these two stones, which weigh a good half a pound each, flew over and struck me with a fair bit of force on the chest.

"Looking back on it, the scariest thing is that June was sitting between me and them at the time.

"The trajectory of that rock could have hit her in the head, and I dread to think what that could have caused."

Mr Hilton said he confronted the youths but quickly realised he could be in trouble if the situation worsened.

He said: "I'm a fairly big bloke.

"I'm a good 6'2'' and about 16-stone, but the problem is I'm almost 75.

"If that group had decided to set about me I wouldn't have stood a chance."

Mr Hilton said he returned to his wife only to be subjected to another salvo of stones, at which point he called 999.

He added: "I was on the phone to the police from inside the hut and the girl on the other end said she could hear the stones hitting it. An officer came down later but the group had gone."

Mr Hilton said the incident was very scary' and that he and his wife no longer want to use the hut.

A spokesman for Dorset Police confirmed an officer attended and made a search of the area after Mr Hilton's call, but that the suspects had disappeared.

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