CONSTABLE "ASSAULTED."

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 3 April 1919, Page 3

CONSTABLE "ASSAULTED."

How serious a thing it is to interefere with the majesty of the law as represented by a blue unifcrm, white cotton gloves and a helmet —with of course a man inside them —was demonstrated at the Auckland Police Court the other day, when a married man of good repute was charged with assaulting Constable Mahoney by spitting on him. The constabje, it appears, was on point duty in Queen Street when a tram-car passed him and somebody spat on his tunic. The defendant was standing on the rear platform of the car, and Constable Mahoney, regarding the incident as another injustice to Oireland, picked him cut as the man who defiled his uniform, and who, he told the Court, turned after spitting and smiled "a kind of sneeriig smile," So Constable Mahoney followed the tram and arrested defendant. The accused vehemently denied spitting on anybody, and his denial was warmly supby a fellow-passenger. The Magistrate said it was quite evidently a case of mistaken identity, and dismissed the charge. But when the defendant, not unreasonably, asked for costs they were refused on the grounds that the Constable was within his rights in arresting the wrong man if he honestly believed he was the right man. Seems a little rough on the wrong man, all the same, doesn't it?