A 67-year old Kenyan native, who has been living and working in Limerick City for twenty years, revealed how she was attacked, racially abused, head butted and assaulted by a man who repeatedly hit her with the door of her own car.
Grace Kelly was driving on Catherine Street near her home when she felt her car impact on something. When she got out the car to investigate, she discovered she had hit a dog that was running loose.
“The man who owned the dog started screaming at me, call me ‘ni**er’ and ‘black bastard,” she told the Limerick Post.
The man then attacked Grace, head-butting her.
She tried to get back into her car to get away from him but he grabbed the doorframe of the car and started battering her with it, hitting her hip and arm as she tried to pull herself inside.
A man who carrying out roadworks came to her rescue and tried to reason with her attacker, who continued shouting abuse as he left.
“He was a good Samaritan,” said Grace. “He stayed with me while I called the Gardaí and until they came and he gave them a witness statement about what happened.”
But that wasn’t the end of her ordeal. On her way to her job as a healtcare worker, “he came up to me on the street and spat at me,” she said.
Now Grace is afraid to go outside alone. “I don’t know his name but I know he lives near me. I see him out walking the dog all the time.”
Grace said she had “never had anything like this” in the twenty years she has lived here with her Irish husband.
