From the Herald Sun:

Tourist clings to life after ‘racist’ bashing
By Brendan Roberts and Geoff Wilkinson
September 16, 2006

A GERMAN backpacker is clinging to life after a group of drunken thugs savagely bashed him in an unprovoked attack.

Martin Schueth, 21, had just left a backpackers’ hostel in Mooroopna, near Shepparton, on Thursday when he was attacked.
Three men shouted racial abuse at Mr Schueth before unleashing a flurry of blows to his head.

The attack continued as he lay on the ground.

Paramedics found him in a pool of blood with severe head injuries.

Mr Schueth was last night in a critical but stable condition in the Alfred hospital.

Three men were yesterday charged with assault with intention to rob and intentionally causing serious injury.

They were remanded in custody.

Sen-Det Shane McLennan said the attack was the result of a dangerous mixture of alcohol and racism.

“These thugs didn’t like the colour of his skin and the colour of his hair. They were heavily intoxicated so they bashed the poor guy senseless,” Sen-Det McLennan said.

“The poor kid had just left the backpackers’ and had only walked 100 metres when he came across these drunken thugs.

“A few minutes later he was nearly dead.

“These offenders are very, very twisted, racist thugs.”

The men had been taken by minibus by a young staff member of a centre where they were staying to Mooroopna.

The men made the driver take them to Shepparton.

Mr Schueth had come to Mooroopna hoping to find work on a farm.

Just a day earlier, his wish had been granted.

Mr Schueth was due to start work on a local dairy farm yesterday.

“He was really looking forward to working on the dairy farm,” a fellow backpacker said.

“He was a farmer back in Germany so he had a lot of experience.

“He told me that he thought Australia was really nice and how excited he was to be starting a new job.”

A spokeswoman for the centre where the three men arrested by police were staying said they had left just before the incident.

Marion Hansen said a night worker at the centre agreed to drive the men to Shepparton in a minibus.

As they drove through Mooroopna on the way to Shepparton they asked the driver to stop so they could use an ATM.

Ms Hansen is program coordinator at Ngwala Willumbong Co-Operative Ltd, the Melbourne-based Aboriginal organisation that operates the centre where the men arrested were staying.

The centre is an eight-bed residential centre on a 75ha property in Toolamba Rd, about 10km from Mooroopna.

Locals said concerns had been expressed recently about the level of supervision at the centre.

Some said the centre’s clientele had changed in recent years.

The chief executive of the Rumbalara Aboriginal Cooperative at Mooroopna, Felicia Dean, said it did not send clients to the centre.

Ms Dean said Rumbalara was a community-controlled organisation that provided services to 6000 clients.

“We’re totally separate from that organisation (the centre).

“We’re as shocked as anybody else. We don’t support that sort of behaviour - by anybody.”

She said fruit picking had not yet started in the area, but some workers had already arrived to help with pruning and thinning of fruit trees.