REILLY ASSAULT CASE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 197, 18 May 1944, Page 6

REILLY ASSAULT CASE

Further Remand A further remand to May 31 was granted by Mr. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court. Wellington, yesterday, when Walter Roy Webster, labourer, aged 44, and Charles Finch, porter-barman, aged 24, appeared on remand to answer charges of assaulting Terence Francis Reilly on or about April 26 and of unlawfully compelling him by unlawful violence and restraint to affix his name to a document agreeing to transfer to his wife. Dorothy May Reilly, his half-share in a property valued at £6OOO. Mr. W. J. Stacey, who appeared for accused, and for Mrs. Reilly, who was also charged- with assaulting her husband, said that divorce proceedings would be heard in the Supreme Court on June b and 7, and asked for an adjournment of the present cases till after that date. The criminal proceedings, he said, were related to the divorce proceedings, and he submitted that the latter should be heard first, quoting a legal authority in support of his application. All the witnesses in the criminal proceedings would appear in the divorce case.- and he submitted that the ends of justice would be met it the remand were granted. Detective-Sergeant Thompson said an application was to be made by Reilly s solicitor to have the divorce proceedings adjourned till after the present cases were disposed of. . ' The magistrate said it would be. well it such an application were made immediately. as a'direction could then be made by the Supreme Court as to which proceedings were to be heard first . Detective-Sergeant Thompson said the police had 14 witnesses present, including one from Napier and one from Christchurch. . . After Mr. Stacey had applied for a renewal of bail, Detective-Sergeant Thompson said that he had evidence that Webster, one of the accused, had been intimidating two witnesses. Mr. Stacey said one of the witnesses referred to was Webster’s mother-in-law. but he would instruct him that he must 'keen away from her. The magistrate told Mr. Stacey to inform Webster that if he had been approaching witnesses bail would not be allowed. , , All three accused were remanded till May 31, bail being allowed in each ease.