[Andyakashrek]

The following is from Norwich Evening news 24.
Theres some scum about, hopefully if he is caught he should be made to stand in front of a boss and told to catch the arrows coming his way. I also have this condition and believe me it's not nice, chronic pain and stress like this will be agony for her.

A world champion disabled archer was slashed in the face when she pulled her mobility car over to answer her mobile phone in broad daylight.

A thug reached through the window of Mel Clarke's car and attacked her before stealing her mobile phone.

Miss Clarke was left with a five-inch cut to her face, after the attack which happened at about 7.30pm on Monday, April 24, in Hellesdon Road, Earlham.

The 23-year-old, who is paralysed from the waist down and blind in her right eye, was so traumatised she was today still unsure whether her attacker used a knife or punched her with a ringed fist.

She had pulled down her car window because it was a hot night, and her attacker saw his chance to strike.

Miss Clarke lives with her parents in Nightingale Drive, Taverham, but because they were not at home she drove her specially adapted mobility car to her friends' house in Lakenham, where they telephoned for the police and paramedics.

They arrived to find her with a badly bruised face, covered in blood and deeply traumatised.

Miss Clarke, who is a teaching assistant at Bignold School, was still too upset to talk to the Evening News, but her mum Brenda Clarke, 54, said her daughter was obeying the law by pulling off the road on to a lay-by to answer the mobile.

Mrs Clarke, a teaching assistant at Nightingale School, said: “She was doing what she is supposed to do by pulling off the road when your mobile rings, then this happens. Mel's still very traumatised, after all this happened when it was still light.”

Police spokeswoman Kristina Raines said: “The car was parked and she was answering a call on her mobile phone when a man reached through her car window and snatched the phone from her hand, injuring her face in the process.

“The phone was a Sony Ericsson black and silver camera phone.”

Her attacker was a white man in his mid 20s, about 5ft 8in with short hair. He was wearing a dark-coloured hooded top with a small white motif.

Miss Raines said: “Officers conducted house to house inquiries in the immediate area but would like to appeal to anyone who may have seen this incident or who has any information about it to come forward.”

As reported in the Evening News, Miss Clarke cemented her world number one disabled archery status by winning the gold medal in the women's compound bow class at the World Disabled Archery Championships in Massa, Italy, last year.

Last year, a community fund-raising campaign led by Norwich Proclaimers Church and Able Community Care raised £8,075 for Miss Clarke, which paid for her £5,000 wheelchair and for help in her preparations before the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.

Miss Clarke took up archery more than seven years ago. She has been in a wheelchair since the age of 11 having a form of arthritis called reflex sympathetic dystrophy.

She also contracted Lyme disease in July 2003, a disease which is often fatal and left her paralysed from the waist down and blind in the right eye.

She won gold at the European Disabled Archery Championships in Poland in 2002 and represented the full UK women's team in June 2003 at the XVI Golden Arrow Grand Prix in Antalya, Turkey, where she won a silver medal. She holds 20 county records, 10 national able-bodied records and six International Paralympic Committee world records.

Ü Anyone with information should call Det Con Rob Windsor-Waite at Norwich CID on 0845 4564567 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.


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