Police already have 'named suspects'

He says police will now be pushing for CCTV to be installed in Egerton Park.

Police are among partners being consulted by Rother council over the planned 1.5m Lottery-aided refurbishment of the park.

The Inspector said a member of the public had called police at 8.10pm on Friday to say around 20 youths were fighting another boy in the park.

On Tuesday he said police attending the scene later found Willem Haymaker being helped by friends in Parkhurst Road.

"The area was searched completely. Several youths were stopped in the area but no suspects were located.

"The group of friends could not provide any description of the attackers other than that they were all wearing hoodies."

He said an ambulance had been called because Willem's eye was closing.

"The park has been the subject of directed patrol activity and we have increased patrols in the park.

"We have also increased seizures of alcohol there. This, with vandalism, is a problem in the park but we have not had violence like this there before.

"The problem is that we don't have CCTV in the park and it is open through the hours of darkness."

The Inspector said that despite the upsurge of violence over the past two weekends - four young men will shortly be interviewed again over the attack at Ravenside which left a Tesco employee with broken jaw and bleeding to the brain - the latest 90-day figures still showed that violent crime was down by 5.7% (six offences) over the preceding period.

On Wednesday Inspector Mann said: "We believe this group come from the Sidley area.

"Police already have the names of several suspects and arrests WILL be made.

"We have had this picture put about in Sidley and shown to parents.

"We are saying to them 'Your child may or may not have been involved' - and from that, information is beginning to come in.

"The victim sustained serious injuries. How permanent they are going to be is not yet known. He is home. But he is under one consultant for his nose and another for his eye.

"There is a by-law relating to the park which means that nobody should be in there after dusk and the police will be seeking to enforce that."

Rother commander Chief Inspector Steve Brookman said: "One point I would emphasise to readers is that this was very much a youth-on-youth attack and violent crime figures are down and in general Bexhill remains a safe place to be while the photograph is shocking and we are taking this very seriously we do emphasise that this is not stranger attack and would ask the public not to be worried about an 'increase' in violent crime."