An 18-year-old man Hamilton man has been charged in connection with a vicious baseball bat beating that landed a boy in the ICU.
15-year-old Noah Rabbani was attacked in late November while walking from his friend's place to his grandmother's
Days after the attack, Noah's father Kahlid Rabbani told NEWSTALK 1010's Moore in the Morning a car drove past his son and stopped. As Noah walked by, the driver of the car exited and stood in front of his son while a second person climbed out of the back seat and hit Noah in the back of the head with a baseball bat.
"Falling down he hit his forehead. His jaw broke. He hit his nose and it broke," the father said. Doctors also flagged a blood clot on Noah's brain and fractures to his skull.
Kahlid Rabbani says the men took off with the boy's backpack with cologne, books and a water bottle inside. They did not take his cellphone or his wallet.
While some family members have raised the possibility that the attack on Noah, who is Muslim and of Pakistani descent, might have been a hate crime, his father is convinced his son was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"It's just a random, selfish, stupid attack which was done for god knows what," he said.
While an investigation by Hamilton Police is ongoing, the service says there is nothing to suggest the attack was "hate motivated".
Police have not yet named the 18-year-old facing charges of aggravated assault and robbery. They are still looking for a second male suspect.