MAYOR’S COURT.

Evening Star, Issue 2919, 27 June 1872, Page 2

MAYOR’S COURT.

This Day. (Before His Worship the Mayor.) DRUNKENNESS. John Alfred Bailey and Daniel Douglass were each fined 5s ; John Campbell, 10s ; Mary Farra and Elizabeth Farra (mother and daughter) 40s each, or 14 days’ imprisonment. OBSCENE LANGUAGE. John Campbell was fined 10s with the alternative of 24 hours’ imprisonment. INDECENCY. Mary Farra was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment with hard labor for tliis offence. ASSAULT. Mayne v. Roy was a re-bearing of a case which was heard on the 10th inst., when the Bench, considering that a case of gross assault had been committed by Mayne, fined him LlO, with heavy costs. There was also a cross case of Roy v. Mayne. As before, Mr E. Cook appeared for Mayne, and Mr Stewart for Roy. The re-hearing of the case was obtained on the ground of fresh evidence being forthcoming; but, on the case being gone into, very little new evi-

dunce came out, and what was new was of a nugatory character. The evidence of Sergeant Neil was to the effect that at two o’clock on the morning of Jane 2, the assault having been committed near midnight on the Ist, Mayne presented himself at the North Dunedin Police Station, and reported that he had been assaulted by Hoy, whom he wished to give in charge. Mayne then told the sergeant that he and Roy had had some words; that the latter threatened to throw him over the jetty, and struck him in the face; that he (Mayne) then caught hold of him, saying, ‘' If you want to fight, come off the jetty ” ; that they had fought, and that he had left Roy laying insensible on the jetty. He also stated that he owed Roy a grudge. A little prior to this, the sergeant heard cries proceeding from the direction of Pelichet Bay jetty, and, going down there, saw Roy being carried into his house. Roy appeared to have been fearfully beaten; his face was beaten into pulp. At first he thought it might have been 1 the result of a fall ; but he believed one fall could scarcely have led to such results. Witness, although he knew the man to be Roy, could not recognise him, Mayne, when at the Police station, did not appear to have been badly treated ; he had no marks on his face. Constable Anderson corroborated the previous witness’s evidence, adding that when he questioned Roy, shortly.after the latter was taken to his house, he said he had fallen off the jetty, and so received his injuries. Later he repeated the statement; but on witness learning from Neil what Mayne had reported to him, he went back to Roy, and asked him pointedly about Mayne. He then said Mayne had assaulted him. When the witness asked him why he did not say so at first, he replied that he did not wish to give Mayne any trouble. The witness Waites repeated the evidence he gave on the former occasion, which was to the effect that Mayne sent fer him on June 3, and told him that he had had a quarrel with Roy, who had attempted to throw him over the jetty ; and that it was with difficulty that he prevented him from doing so ; that they had a severe struggle, which lasted for five-and-twenty minutes; that he caught Roy by the neck and struck him a blow there with his fist, which felled him; that he got very angry with him, and gave him a good thrashing; that he left him stiff on the jetty; and, having walk round him, siw he had not “ a kick left in him.” In answer to Mr Cook the witness said he had a distinct recollection of the as he considered them remarkable at the time, i’oy, in his evidence, said he had no recollection of theconversautions with the police. His Worship said the Bench were of opinion that the judgment must be the same as previously. The justices wh» tried the case were decidedly of that opinion; and he must say for himself that he quite agreed therewith - indeed he thought if he had tried the case alone, he should have inflicted imprisonment without the option of a fine. A most brutal assault had been commited upon Roy. The evidence as to who began the quarrel was very conflicting ; and the Bench was as much at liberty to believe one statement as the other. They had, therefore, to look at results and the surrounding circumstances of the case in coming to a decision. They bad the fact before them that Mayne was suffering simply from a blow on the nose ; and that at the hour of one o’clock in the morning he went to the police station to prefer a charge against Roy for that assault. The fact to his (the Mayor’s) mind, of Mayne going at that unseemly hour to reporta very trifling injury, warranted the belief, as had been alleged, that his only reason for doing so was to have the first chance, knowing as he must have done, from the state he left Roy in, that something must come of the affair. Mayne, in his evidence, admitted that on his way to the station ho heard cries; and he himself believed them to have proceeded from Roy, who must have been in the water. Instead of doing what anyone with common feelings of humanity would have done—gone to the assistance of the man—he actually went to the station to lay a frivolous charge against him, absolutely leaving the man to die. Such an instance of carelessness and hard-heartedness it had seldom been his (the Mayor’s) lot to observe. The witness Waitcs’s evidence had been given impartially; and he swore deliberately that the words he testified to were used by Mayne. He had every reason to believe —in fact, he did believe—it to be true. Whether commenced or not by Roy, after that commencement, it was one of the most brutal assaults he had ever listened to. He felt very strongly of opinion that had he trie :1J the case by himself in the first instance he would have indicted imprisonment without any line. The case of Mayne v. Roy would be dismissed; in Roy v. Mayne defendant would be fined LlO, or two months’ imprisonment. The half of the line, less expenses, was awarded to Roy to discharge his medical expenses ; and Mayne was given six weeks to pay the fine in.