BRUTAL ASSAULT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 224, 20 September 1940, Page 8

BRUTAL ASSAULT.

SEAMAN "GAOLEDf GIRL'S ORDEAL IN OFFICE. (By Air.) SYDNEY, Sept. 18. Convicted of having assaulted a girl of 19 with intent to commit a capital offence, Joseph Colin Bell, 25, a seaman, was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude by acting-Judge Stoddart at Quarter Sessions this week. The girl, Marjorie MeKeon, was attacked in her employer's office in Parrainatta Road, Stanmore, on July 22. Her eyes were blackened and her cheekbone fractured. Bell pleaded guilty to having assaulted the girl, causing bodily harm, but denied intent to commit the more serious offence.

When Bell called at the office, it was stated, tlie girl was alone on the premises. When she resisted his attentions lie attacked her with what the Crown Prosecutor described as "the utmost brutality and savagery." She was heavily punched about the face, and her clothes were torn. In breaking away from Bell she fell down a flight of steps. She was then grabbed by the hair of the head while an attempt was made to drag her back up the stairway. Screaming for help, she finally escaped. Bell was arrested within 30 yards of the building as he was walking alon" the street.

In a statement froni the dock. Bell said that while in the office he had a dispute with the girl, and she then went to the telephone and threatened to call the police. It was then that he hit her. He had no intention of further molesting her. "Drink is my downfall," said Bell when asked if he had anything to say before he was Sentenced. *

Acting-Judge Stoddart said it was just as bad a case of attempted rape as it would be possible to conceive. In view of the battering the girl had received, it was amazing that she had been able to withstand it and escape with her virtue intact. There were no mitigating circumstances.'