ASSAULT CASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3778, 7 December 1907, Page 3

ASSAULT CASE.

At the Police Court this morning, before Messrs Alf. Fraser and F. W. Frankland, J’s.P., Edward A. Coley, for whom Mr R. Moore appeared, was charged by the police with assaulting Geo. W. Tee, a porter at the Manawatu Hotel, on the 2nd inst. The accused, who was unwell, did not appear. Mr Moore said that his client would plead guilty to the charge. He stated that accused had published an advertisement in the local paper, warning anyone against kidnapping his boy. Tee had seen this notice. During Coley’s absence in Australia, his boy had been kidnapped, and Lee had assisted to bring this about by taking a message from the boy’s mother to the lad, asking him to call at the hotel. Accused, said Mr Moore, was an affectionate parent, and he appealed to the Bench, as parents, to imagine how they would feel if something of a similar nature had occurred to them. Of course, Coley was not justified in committing the assault, but he asked the Bench to consider the extenuating circumstances, and the parent’s feelings at the time. Accused was greatly incensed at the conduct of Lee in assisting to have the boy removed from the father’s custody. Constable Woods stated that Lee had been asked by the mother, who was stopping at the hotel at the time, to deliver a message to the boy asking him to call at the hotel. Lee delivered the message as part of his duties at the hotel. When Coley returned from Australia, he threatened to give Lee something to remember. He went to the hotel, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Lord, on the 2nd, called Lee outside, and said, “you were the man who helped to take my child away. Take that, you b ” and with that he struck Lee on the eye, and knocked him down, and severely mauled him, until Spelman interfered.

Constable Woods said that an unprovoked assault had been committed} and, in the interests of the public safety}'asked that asukstential fine should be imposed. The Bench inflicted a fine of 40s, and costs, Bs.