CHARGE OF ASSAULT

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 24, 29 January 1934, Page 10

CHARGE OF ASSAULT

MAN COMMITTED FOR TRIAL

■.Charged with assaulting Hugh Henry McGill at Petone on December 23, Lionel George McGill, an employee, of the Gear Meat Co., appeared in the Pctone Court this nioruing before Messrs. A. Coles and J. Huggan, J.P.s. Ar.thur diaries llelneld, an acting house surgeon at the Wellington Hospital, said that.H. 11. McGill was admitted to the hospital suffering from a wound which extended about 6 inches across the skull, and which had severed the whole thickness of the scalp. Ho was in the hospital until January S. Hugh H. McGill, a labourer, said during the- afternoon of December 23 I ho went to the Grand National Hotel and had three glasses of ale. He did not know the defendant. After leaving tho hotel ho heard noises round the back of the hotel and went round anil :m\v a light in progress. Ho did not know tho men who were fighting, and as ho did not think tho fight a'clean ono h6 walked between the men and asked them to stop. He had no further recollection until ho was lying on. tho ground being asked his name and address. John Richard Callon, a fiirnacenian, ■ said MeGill was slightly drunk in tho bar and was something of a nuisance. There was an argument between tho defendant and 11. Me Gil), and witness told tho defendant there were plenty of men of his own age in. the bar without picking on an old man like McGill. After being challenged four times, witness went out with tho defendant and they had a fight. The fight had lasted about ten minutes when witness grasped tho defendant under tho armpits and' was b bitlen on the thumbs. Ho culled to someone to hold tho defendant "and released him. The next thing he saw was H. McGill being struck witli tho clothes prop. After several other witnesses had given evidence, Constable ]?. A. Morris read a statement in which the defendant said that H. McGill tried to pick a quarrel with him in the bar. Another man used bad language to' him, so an invitation was extended to this man to go round the back. He quickly got the better of the man, and when two other men came into tho fight he struck one with the clothes prop. Mr. C. R. Barrett, who appeared for McGill, said he had never heard a ease in which there were so many discrepancies on matters of importance . on tho part of the police prosecution. | Ho maintained that' there was insufficient evidence to warrant tho case going to tho Supreme Court. Senior-Sergeant C. E. Roach stressed the fact that tho assault had been a substantial one. The defendant was committed to the Supreme Court at Wellington for trial.