A Sydney hotel chef has told a jury of hearing an old man crying as he was bashed by two young men who dragged him from a car where he had been sleeping.
"They were kicking and hitting him," Amanda Ganzer testified in the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday.
She was giving evidence at the trial of brothers Ray Travers, 22, and Jacksun Travers, 20, who have pleaded not guilty to murdering Peter Hofmann on June 21, 2017, at Maroubra.
The 68-year-old retired bus driver had fallen into financial hardship and was sleeping rough in his car for months before he was killed.
Ms Ganzer said she was walking home from work on the evening of June 21 when she passed an elderly man sleeping in an oldish, white car - a familiar sighting for her.
She turned to go through a park when she crossed paths with a young man walking towards, then past, her.
He was aged about 18-20, around her height of 166cm , with a stocky build, tanned skin, short sandy hair, chiselled chin and wearing a light grey shirt, jeans and boots.
"I turned around to see if he was following me," she said.
He wasn't and was making his way towards the parked car, before he knocked on the driver's side window and said "hey mate".
She then heard a loud bang and when she turned around saw the man banging on the windows quite aggressively, saying "open the f***ing door".
"I heard the word shotgun but I don't know in what sense it was being used."
As he kicked the door, she saw another young man cross the road.
"I thought he was going to help the man in the car," Ms Ganzer said.
But he joined in hitting the vehicle.
He was of similar height to the first man, tanned, toned, with short dark brown hair, about 18 to 20 and wearing a blue shirt and jeans.
She fumbled for her phone, before seeing the driver's door had opened somehow and the old man was being dragged out of the car to the ground.
The assailants kicked and hit him, one punching down on the man's head while the other lent in to his chest with short punches.
"I could hear him crying."
One attacker then said "we've got to get out of here" before one ran past her.
She saw him pacing up and down across the street as he yelled out in an erratic way "like he was scared".
She could not identify either of the culprits when police showed her photographs of a number of men.
Taxi driver Habib Rahman testified that he was driving his cab when he saw someone kicking a parked car and when he looked in his rear mirror, he saw someone join him.
He did a u-turn and saw a window smashed and glass on the road.
In his triple-zero call, played to the jury, Mr Rahman reported seeing "two boys they are bashing a person".
The trial continues before Acting Justice Peter Hidden.
Australian Associated Press
