Widow (62) is forced to move home after vicious assault outside Dublin flat
A widow was left with a black eye and bruising to her body after being assaulted outside her Dublin flat in an unprovoked attack.
Ann O'Brien had to be moved to a new address as a result of the attack, which left her fearing for her life.
She was viciously assaulted in Oliver Bond House in the south-inner city at around 6am last Saturday week.
The 62-year-old was woken by the sound of a bang as she slept in her bed.
"I heard a bang but decided to ignore it. Then a moment later there was another bang followed by what sounded like glass smashing," she told the Herald.
"I walked outside onto the balcony and saw this girl standing beside my car, she was throwing glass bottles against it for some reason," Ms O'Brien added. She confronted the woman, who is known to the victim, and asked why she was damaging her car.
"I asked her why she was throwing bottles against my car and she said, 'it wasn't me'. It clearly was her because there was nobody else around. Then she went mental and ran up to my balcony."
The woman then launched a sickening attack on the widow, pulling her by the hair and kicking her.
DRAGGED
"She dragged me around the balcony by the hair, and she then hit me and kicked me in the face. She was saying awful things as well which I don't want to repeat," Ms O'Brien said.
The assault eventually stopped and Ann called gardai.
"I looked at myself in the mirror while I was waiting for the gardai and there was a horrible bruise on my face. The gardai came straight away, to be fair to them, and called the ambulance.
"I couldn't breathe after what had happened and I was brought to St James's where I spent all day to get brain scans in case there was any serious damage," she said.
Ann knows her attacker and stated that she wanted to tell her story to prevent such attacks happening again.
"I'm not ashamed of anything; I can still hold my head high," she said.
I just want people to know what is going on in this city so what happened to me won't happen to anyone else. Nobody should be attacked outside their own home, it's the one place you're meant to feel safe," she explained.
Ann, who is a mother-of-two, has decided not to take criminal proceedings against her attacker, saying she "just wants to get on with things" and get out of the area as soon as she can.
Speaking after being moved to a different address, Ann told the Herald: "In the end I'm just thankful to my doctor and the council for getting me out of there."