Ipswich anti-corruption campaigner and local karate teacher Jim Dodrill was brutally assaulted and taken to PA Hospital in Brisbane on Sunday arvo.
As he was leaving a Catholic church service in Riverview Sunday morning, 52-year-old Dodrill says he was approached by a man he did not recognise asking for his help with an issue to do with local council: “He said he had complained to the council about FWDs and trail bikes and they hadn’t done anything.”
He agreed to meet with the man near Henty Drive Park in Redbank Plains at 4pm that day.
When they arrived, he and his father, 72-year-old Mitch Dodrill, were led 400-metres up a secluded dirt road, before they lost sight of the man.
That’s when several cars, 4WDs and trail bikes arrived.
Dodrill said:
“Within seconds we were being attacked.“I defended myself as best I could, but they got me on the ground. They were at least 15 of them, aged from late teens to early 30s.“I was getting hit with bars and bottles on the ground – they didn’t ease up for even a second.“One of them was screaming: ‘Kill the cunts, kill the cunts.’“
Injuries suffered by Dodrill include a broken finger, dislocated collar bone, bruised ribs, and gashes and contusions to his head. He was discharged from hospital late on Sunday.
Dodrill says he does not know who may have been involved in the attack.
Dodrill is the President of the Ipswich Ratepayers and Residents Association (IRRA), a local community action group formed in August last year, who vow to keep Ipswich City Council “accountable” for “poor planning and development decisions” and other missteps, including developments that may have resulted in the “near daily deaths of koalas“. KOALAS. Bloody unbelievable.
The group are vocal in their criticism of former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale, who is currently facing extortion charges, believed to be for allegedly threatening to out a businessman for seeking the services of a sex worker.
Last week Dodrill protested at Parliament with other campaigners, urging for the creation of a Queensland anti-corruption body, akin to NSW‘s ICAC, after a series of accusations about election donation irregularities in local govs across the state.
Shameful.
Photo: Supplied.
Source: Brisbane Times.
