STRUCK BY MALLET

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 106, 29 January 1935, Page 3

STRUCK BY MALLET

Restaurant Proprietor Assaulted

“If you have a difference of opinion with a waitress, there is no need to knock the proprietor out,” said Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M., in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when John Joseph Higgans, fireman, aged 36. was charged with assaulting Jack Vlahovick. Higgans pleaded not guilty, but was fined £3 in default 11 days’ imprisonment. Jack Vlahovick, proprietor of tearooms in Taranaki Street, said Higgans came into the kitchen and threatened to kill someone. He hit a waitress, and then hit witness on the head with a mallet.

Olive Lewis, waitress, said that about 5.45 p.m. on Saturday, Higgans came into file kitchen after another waitress whom he wanted to strike. There was e struggle to get the mallet from his hand, and Vlahovick received a blow from it.

Obnstable Young said when he arrived at the tea-rooms the proprietor, who had a blood-stained handkerchief around his head, pointed out accused with the mallet. Accused would not admit striking the man with the mallet. Higgans stated that he had ordered' a cup of coffee which a waitress had spilled over his head, and that had caused the trouble.