More towpath attacks

SINCE publishing the article concerning towpath attacks, people have contacted us concerning more such towpath attacks during this year.

One male walker took great exception to a woman and her dog walking the towpath of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Chorley on the 14th March, launching an unprovoked assault on both the woman and her dog, Archie Bellows tells us.

The woman was verbally and physically attacked and her dog kicked, with a motorist on the nearby road seeing the incident gave her and her injured dog a lift home, and though a police request was made in the Lancashire Post, for further information no one came forward.

Two more attacks

Phyllis Groves tells us that she was 'pushed around' whilst walking the Trent & Mersey Canal below the locks in Stone by a gang of youths, early in October, with one of them patting her body, feeling very scared as being unable to escape, then her relief as a boat pulled in and a man stepped off and approached them, the gang running off.

It was in the afternoon of the 25th July, when a man cycling past the army camp along the the Shropshire Union Canal towards Ellesmere Port was struck in the face with a solid object as he came from under a bridge and knocked off his bike, as reported in the Chester Chronicle, 'Den' Travers tells us.

He was knocked unconscious and toppled into the canal, but a woman saw the attack and dragged him out of the water calling the emergency services.