Mugging survivor scathing of suppression plea

An 86-year-old victim of a vicious street mugging is disgusted her alleged attacker has received name suppression out of consideration for his 90-year-old grandmother.

Patricia Burrows was released on Christmas Eve from hospital, where she had spent three weeks with a fractured pelvis after being attacked in the Barrington Shopping Centre car park.

A 35-year-old man accused of attacking and robbing Burrows made a second appearance in the Christchurch District Court on Thursday morning. He has denied the charge.

Defence counsel Lee Lee Heah argued for a week's continued name suppression on the grounds that the man's grandmother was ill and "did not have long to live".

The accused did not speak other than to ask a smiling man in the public gallery: "What the f... are you laughing at?"

Judge Raoul Neave granted a week's name suppression to give the family time to tell their grandmother.

"He didn't think much about his grandmother when he was doing the act on me, did he?" said Burrows from her Barrington home on Thursday.

"What was done to me was the lowest of the low."

Burrows went straight back to the shops after getting out of hospital and said she was feeling much better "because at last I've had a hairdo".

The fracture in her pelvis remained, as doctors had decided not to operate.

She still had pain in her leg after the robber picked her up from behind and dumped her on the ground.

Burrows said doctors had told her not to drive, which was annoying because her son, in his 60s, had had a stroke and she needed to be able to drive him around.

It was "marvellous" to return home and be reunited with husband Buzz, 91, who had joined her in hospital for a time with a kidney problem.

"We've got good families so we're OK," she said.

Burrows, who survived throat cancer this year, said she was unhappy handrails had been put in her house to help her.

"I don't want to look like an old woman who can't do her own thing – so I want to beat it."

Christmas was going to be a quiet affair with family, she said – "just a relaxing time, no big fuss".

- © Fairfax NZ News