STRUCK WITH CUDGEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 11

STRUCK WITH CUDGEL

WOMAN INJURED

INTRUDER IN BEDROOM

(By I'plpernnh— I'rese Association.!

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

Wearing a bandage round her head, Mrs. Grace Abbott, of Faraday Street, Sydenham, entered the witness box in the Magistrate's Court today to give evidence against Frederick Thomas Wilder, labourer, aged 22, who was charged with breaking and entering her house by night on May 30 and causing her bodily harm. He pleaded guilty and was committed to ths Supreme Court for sentence.

Mrs. Abbott said that she lived alone. On Saturday, May 29, she went to bed before midnight after locking and bolting the doors and windows. In the early hours she was wakened by a blow which dazed her. She was struck again and then she heard her door bang and footsteps retreating. "I screamed then and jumped out of bed," said Mrs. Abbott. On going to the kitchen door she found it being held against her. Pushing it open, she found a man in the room, the light being

"He turned to run and I threw myself at him, as he seemed to be going to strike me," continued Mrs. Abbott, who said that she recognised her assailant as Fred Wilder. "I said, 'Freddie, what are you doing here?' He replied, 'What am I doing? How did I get here?' " Wilder told witness he had been struck on the head by a motor-car. He remained in the house until about 6.45 in the morning, and said that he had come for money. He showed her a cudgel, lead-weighted with a rubber handle, with which he had struck her. Mrs. Abbott said that she took Wilder home in a taxi, picking up his cycle on the way. When they arrived at Wilder's home he climbed over a fence and disappeared. Witness went in and saw his parents.

Dr. Vivian said he considered that Mrs. Abbott had been lucky to escape more serious injury.

Wilder, in a statement, said that he had made the cudgel nine days before he had broken into the house. On May 29 he decided to break into Mrs. Abbott's home. When he was searching her room for money she moved, so he struck her. She screamed and he struck again, then going out of the room. Later, Wilder-stated, he helped Mrs. Abbott to bathe her head and she drove him home. He wanted money to go to the country to get work. He was a farm labourer and was unemployed.