A CHURCH BAN

Shannon News, 13 April 1928, Page 3

A CHURCH BAN

VICARS “BLACK EYE.” As a result of a scene in St. Paul’s Parish Church, Kingston Hill, London, George Sherwood Lewis, of Alexandra Road, appeared before the Kingston on-Thames Bench recently. On a summons for riotous behaviour lie was bound over under the Proba tion of Offenders Act to be of good behaviour for 12 months and to ab stain from going to St. Paul’s Church or the vicarage during that time. He was also ordered to pay live guineas costs.

Mr. W. E. Blake Carn, solicitor, opening the case, said the incident was the culmination of a series of incidents and threats in letters written to the vicar, the Rev. A. Wellesley Orr. When Mr. Orr went into the pulpit on Sunday evening to deliver his sermon, Lewis jumped up and shouted: “Mr. Orr, you are a scamp and a scoundrel, and you are not lit to preach.” Lewis, giving evidence, said he once went to the vicarage to “ask for the explanation of a certain act which he did not think quite straight.” When he got. up to go, the vicar turned the key in the door and put his back against it.

Mr. Carn: Is that why the vicar got a blade eye?—Yob. The vicar, in evidence, said that on the ' occasion in the vicarage he put his hands in his pockets and Lewis struck him a blow. He did not lock Lewis in the study.