Police hope bashing reconstruction jogs memories

Police hope a television reconstruction of the bashing of an elderly man in a South Auckland retirement village will jog a few memories when it screens this week.

The reconstruction was to be aired on Police Ten 7 on Thursday, Detective Senior Sergeant Karyn Malthus told NZPA.

Filming was taking place today.

Louis Watts, 85, was knocked unconscious for 1-1/2 hours during the attack in his unit in the Bethesda Village retirement centre in Wiri, South Auckland, last Wednesday night.

Ms Malthus said a suspicious man was seen jogging out the village's rear gates about 7pm before stopping to talk to another person on the corner of Inverill and Islay Streets.

The man was described as mid to late 20s with dark trousers and a dark top.

Police would like to speak to anyone who could identify the man or the person he was talking to. He has a similar description to the man who bashed Mr Watts, so police are keen to find him.

"It's that kind of thing which we can't ignore. If we heard from him and he just used it as a short cut, we could eliminate him from our enquiries," Ms Malthus said.

She added that police had not had any calls from the public about the suspicious man, although she said it was not surprising considering it was the Easter long weekend.

"We have found there are people who are using that route as a short cut. But to do so, they have to jump over the fence at the front of the retirement village because the gates are locked and jump over the back. So it's not a thoroughfare, and only select individuals will cross barriers like that.

"So we're very keen to identify who those people are. All that they may have done wrong is take a sneaky short cut, but who did they see while they were there or were they actually up to something different?," Ms Malthus said.

Meanwhile, Mr Watts was making a steady recovery.