THE target of a racist bashing by two Hobart thugs has compared the vicious, drunken and unprovoked attack to the treatment he endured during 12 years of bloody civil war in his African homeland.
Fayia Lahai came to Tasmania three years ago, seeking peace and a new life after the brutality of life in Sierra Leone, where murder and violence were daily occurrences and where he saw family and friends killed.
But his hopes and dreams were shattered in the early hours of September 26 last year when he stopped at the Moonah Hotel in Main Rd, Moonah and picked up Samuel Craig Bigwood, his brother Benjamin and their friend Zachary Sonners.
The details of the brutal bashing and attacks on two other men by the Bigwood brothers, of Claremont were revealed last week in the Supreme Court in Hobart after the two admitted their crimes.
As the taxi drove to the city, Samuel Bigwood started yelling at Mr Lahai.
“You are a black dog animal and not a human being,” Bigwood said.
He punched Mr Lahai hard, twice to the nose and about three times to his left ear.
Mr Lahai was forced to stop the cab and the trio got out but not before Samuel Bigwood tipped the contents of a beer into the front of the taxi. They left without paying the fare.
Yesterday, after the brothers were sentenced for their crimes one getting a prison term and the other given a suspended sentence Mr Lahai revealed how their cowardly attack had deeply affected his life.
