GIRL ALLEGES ASSAULT

Southland Times, Issue 21097, 31 May 1930, Page 8

GIRL ALLEGES ASSAULT

TWO MEN CHARGED.

AN OUTING BY CAR.

Sydney, May 13

Allegations that five young men had taken four girls from Redfern to Carrs Park, Kokarah, where one of the men held a girl down, while another man committed a capital offence, were made at the Kogarah Police Court to-day. Arthur Percy Sealby, 19, shop boy, and Clarence Cunningham, 19, gardener, were charged with having ’ committed a criminal offence on a girl. The girl concerned, who looked considerably younger than her 19 years, told the court .that she met three other girls and w-ent for a walk with them towards Exhibition Park. One girl met a young man she knew, and all went in a car to Kogarah. Three men were in the car with them, and two others followed on a motor cycle.

They stopped at Carrs Park, and one girl left the car and went away with the young men. She herself remained in the car, but later got out and went up Io where the others were.

One of the men grabbed her and pushed her down. He tied a handkerchief round her mouth, and she screamed. The other girls ran back to the car, and one man, whom she identified as Cunningham, continued to held her while Sealby committed the offence.

When the men allowed her to get up she could hardly walk. On the .way back to the car Cunningham punched her in the face. The men drove her back to Redfern, where she left the car and looked for a policeman. She was crying the whole way from Kogarah to Redfern. • Here the girl broke down in the box and sobbed for a few minutes. Isabel Russell said she was one of the party. She heard one girl screaming and calling for help. Heather Tager said she was 18 years old and married, but was not -living with her husband. She admitted having told the police that one of the young men pushed the girl down and stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth. After this witness had told the court that she could not recognize any of the men, the police prosecutor (Sergeant Hart) was given permission to treat her as hostile. To Mr Camphin, S.M., she said she had heard the girl scream. All of them then left her there with Sealby and went back to the car.

Carl Timmis said that when the girl came back to the car she said, “You lot would not come to my assistance if I was dying!” Both men reserved their defence, and were committed for trial on bail of £l2O each. They must report each week to the Redfern police.