CHARGE OF ASSAULT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26620, 17 November 1947, Page 5

CHARGE OF ASSAULT

STUDENT PLACED ON PROBATION •• This seems to be a stupid, inexplicable action, and it is obviously the result of some form of loss of balance through over-study, plus the party the accused attended.” said Mr E. J. Anderson when he appeared in the City Police Court on Saturday on behalf of a student, aged 20 who pleaded guilty to a charge of assaulting a 17-year-old girl. Messrs A. J. Haub and W. Rutherford, justices of the peace, were on the Bench. Senior Sergeant D. Vaughan told the court that after the complainant had left her boy friend at 0.40 that morning she heard someone running alongside her. This turned out to be the accused, who put his arms round her and tried to kiss her. She went inside the house, but the accused hung about and would not go away, although the girl’s mother and father both tried to persuade him to do so. Eventually the police were sent for. and the accused was arrested. The senior sergeant added that the accused, who had been studying for a degree, was known by the police to be of good repute. Mr Anderson described the accused as a boy of brilliant scholastic attainments. His moral character was very high, and he appeared to have been studying very hard for the past two years, After concluding his examinations, he had gone to a students’ party, where he had mixed beer and cider, and it was while he was on his way home that he had done what the police had described. In view of the circumstances, Mr Anderson asked that the accused's name should be suppressed. Tire accused was convicted and released on probation for a period of 12 months. An order was made prohibiting publication of his name, and the Bench warned the accused not to take intoxicating liquor. Shoplifting Charges The accused and her daughter were detected before 4 p.m. yesterday, shoplifting in a store in the . city,” said Chief Detective T. Y. Hall when Mary Eliza Caswell, aged 62, a domestic, was charged with the theft on November 14 of an egg beater and a pair of ladies stockings, of a value of £2, from one city store, and with stealing on the same day two table cloths, of a value of about £2 from another store. The chief detective added that it was found that articles had been taken from half a dozen different shops. A search of the accused’s house revealed a carload of goods allegedly stolen. Mr Hall’s application for a remand till Thursday was granted. Bail was allowed in the accused’s own recognisance of £SO and one surety of £SO. Drunkenness Allan Muir Weir, aged 37, a labourer, who did not appear, was convicted and fined £1 on a charge of drunkenness.