BAPTISED IN A DITCH.

Shannon News, 19 July 1927, Page 2

BAPTISED IN A DITCH.

CULPRIT FINED.

“Defendant held complainant under the water, and, had not two persons pulled him away, there might have ,been serious consequences,” remarked Senior-Sergeant O’Grady in the Magistrate’s Court at Palmerston North yesterday, when Basil Stokes appeared before Mr J. G. L. Hewitt, S.M., on a charge of having assaulted Donald David Wilson at Tokomaru on June 25, with wilfully, damaging his clothing, and with having used language.

“Complainant had recently joined a sect that believes in water baptism,” remarked counsel for defendant, “and defendant, who was drunk at the time, seeing him in the street, thought that he would baptise him in a ditch.” Counsel pleaded that his client was a high-spirited young man, and that his actions had been merely in the nature of a prank. The obscene language, he stated iii reply to a’ question from the Bench, had been used when defendant was stopped from proceeding with the “baptism.” “I will have to inflict a penalty that will prevent you from repeating this,” said the Magistrate, in fining defendant £5 on the three charges. Costs amounted to ?os, the damage to complainant’s clothing to be made good out of the fine.