AVONDALE ASSAULT CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 32, 7 February 1905, Page 3

AVONDALE ASSAULT CASE.

SERIOUS CHARGE BY A CTRL. MISTAKEN IDENTITY ALLEGED. John Hughes, a married man, twins at Avondale. was charged before Mr S. £. McCarthy. S.M.. in the Police Court yesterday, with havina; assaulted a girl of IS named Rose- Thomas at Avondale with intent to commit rape. The prosecution was conducted by SubInspector Black, and the defence by Mr J. R. Lundon, who sought in his I cross-examination of* the prosecutrix to show that she was mistaken in identifying Hughes as her assailant. The complainant said that she was a servant employed at Avondale. and on the evening of January 2S she went out j to make some purchases. She -was returning ro the house ax 5.30 when a man overtook her on the*footpath. He disappeared, and when =he passed the Presbyterian Church she saw a man walking 20 yards behind her. She had to go down a side road, and when there a man caught her by the throat and threw her on the road. This individual said to her. "Not a murmur, or I'll blow your brains out."' and he bumped her. head upon the stones. She felt dazed, and the next thing she remembered was linding herself lying in tbe ditch. She was again threatened, the man displaying something which looked like a revolver. She was similarly threatened a third time, when some ladies were pas.-ing and the man was forcing her to lie still. Witness waited until they were close to her. Then she screamed out, and the man jumper! over the hedge. There were four ladies, and witness* complained to them of the treatment she had received. In struggling to resist the man's attempt to commit an assault upon her, she ?ut her right hand and sustained several bruises. The prosecutrix: said she was positive as to ths identity of her assailant, whose dress and appearance she described in detail. At the Avondale police station ten or eleven men were placed in a row. and she picked out the prisoner Hughes as the man who assaulted her. Accused asked her a number of questions to show that he was in a shop at which she bad called before she left for heT employer's residence. Sub-Inspector Black: Do you swear positively that Hughes is the man? Witness: He is very much like ihe man so far as I can see. I could not swear that he was the man. Sub-Inspector Black: Have you any doubi about it in your own mind? Witness: No. To Mr Lundon: She knew that the accused was a married man with four ehddren. There fere no marks on her clothes to indicate how she was taken from the roadway to the ditch, and she did not know how long she remained therp. The accused's house was thirty yards away. and. she did not utter a souud when she was in the ditch. The man made an improper stiorjrestion, to which she did not reply, because she was too frightened. She Told the ladies that the man showed a revolver, but it might have been a bit of stic-1 . Mr Lundon: Do you not know that a man who lives in the tea-tee in that neighbourhood has made himself a nuisance? —Witness: I have heard that somebody is about there who is alleged to have assaulted a little girl on Tuesday. Dr. Roberton gave evidence as to the bruises on tire prosecutrix, and the further bearing of the case was adjourned until this morning. (.Continued on Page