A SHOCKING CASE.

Evening Star, Issue 3815, 17 May 1875, Page 3

A SHOCKING CASE.

Information reached the police by telegraph from Oamaru, at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday, of an indecent assault on a little girl named Alice Douse, nine years of age, at Hampden; and by four o’clock the supposed offender—Peter M’Gregor—was lodged in the watchhouae by Detective Henderson. Although the alleged assault took place about three weeks since, thelgirl’s'guardians-—herjuncle, a married man, named Samuel Ayers, living at the Bighill Railway cutting, Kaka Creek, and his wife—could not be prevailed upon, although persistently asked to do so, to communicate the facts to either the police or to Dr Smith, who subsequently attended the girl, they stating their wish not to expose the latter. The doctor, however, has become acquainted with the whole facts, and from the statement furnished by him to the police it appears that the girl was in the habit of taking meat fromfa buf cher’s *cart to the workmen’s tent on the camp close by. On the day in question she took meat to M‘6regor, and there being no one else in the tent he induced her to lie down on his bunk, and there attempted to commit the offence with which he is charged, until the child’s screams compelled him to desist. It is, however, the opinion of the medical man that M‘Gregor accomplished his villainous purpose. The worst part of the affair is that the girl suffers from disease which he communicated to her. On Saturday, the Bth inst., a number of men employed on the works .got wind of what had occurred, and several of them pulled down M'Gregor’s tent and hooted him off the works. On Monday he left for Oamaru, and proceeded to Dunedin on Thursday by the Samson, it being his intention to proceed to the Palmer diggings. M'Qregor was brought np at the Police Court to-day and remanded to Oamaru.