JUDGE’S WARNING

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1931, Page 2

JUDGE’S WARNING

GLASGOW RAZOR SLASHERS

VICTIM’S DRAMATIC STORY

There was another judicial declaration against razor-slashing and gangs in Glasgow High Court, when Lord Onnidale spoke very sternly to a young man Peter Hoyle, whom lie sent to prison for 18 months for attaining another man with a razor. “ I don t know whether you and people like you,” his Lorship said, are aware ot the vie\> taken of young blackguards who do not hestitate to use a knife when their nerves, as they sav get the hotter of tern. That sort o,' thing has given a great deal of trouble; it has been the source of a great deal of intimidation, so that law-abiding people have come to he greatly alarmed about the conduct of small gangs of idlers.” Lord Ormidale also pointed out to the accused that by the Act under which the Crown had placed the iiv dictment. with the pains of law restricted, the prisoner’s life would have been in jeopardy, and lie might have had to suffer a capital sentence. “If you and others like you were not aware that you were playing with fire you had better take it to heart now,” his Lordship concluded.

In returning a verdict of guilty, the jury expressed the view that the accused had acted under great provocation. Had it not been for that modification, Lord Orniidnlo said, Bovle would have been sent into peiml servitude for a very long period. The assault on Chalmers was committed on Saturday evening, September 20th, in a pond in Castle street. The affair caused great excitement in the district, and a large crowd which gathered was hostile to Boyle, and demanded that he be arrested and charg. ed with the assault.

The principal witness was James Chalmers (26), 11 James Oit street, whose face bears a long deep scar under the left jaw. On the judge’s instructions, Chalmers, while giving evidence, showed the scar to the jury. Chalmers said lie and Boyle were two of a crowd which frequented a common pend at 145 Castle street.

“FACE LYING OPEN.” On September 2Ctb, Chalmers was in a friend’s house at 145 Castle street when he heard singing in the pend. He left the house to join the crowd, which consisted of six or seven persons, including Bovle. Witness had not been there long when the accused brushed against him, and Chalmers pushed him away rather violently. After staggering hack Boyle again brushed against Chalmers, a»d asked what witness had meant by that. Boyle then turned on his heel, saying, “You wait a minute,” and went up the stairs. Three minutes Inter Chalmers was standing facing the crowd with his back to the stairway, when lie was attacked from behind.

“ I just felt my face lying open,” Chalmers said. “ There was no pain at all.”

Chalmers walked to the Royal Infirmary, where 15 stitches wore put in the wound-

Boyle, in the witness box, said that when Chalmers joined the crowd in the pend he passed a remark which Boyle thought was addressed to him. Chalmers went over and struck witness a blow on the side of the head wit 4 * an instrument which he had in his hand. Witness declared that he was re. peatedly struck by Chalmers, and at Inst he drew a razor which he had in In’s pocket. “ I was not responsible for what took place,” Boyle declared. It was done in self-defence.” Cross-examined, he said Chalmers excited him so much that his nerves got the better of him, and, being under the influence of drink, he did not realise what he was doing. He did not slash Chalmers while Chalmers was not. looking.

Lord Ormidale’s last words to the prisoner when passing sentence were: “It was a dastardly and cowardly way of protecting yourself.”