TWO SERIOUS CHARGES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 18, 12 April 1927, Page 5

TWO SERIOUS CHARGES

COMMITTED FOR TRIAL Ernest Edward Leaning, a bootshop proprietor of Upper Queen Street, pleaded not guilty to two charges of indecent assault on a male in the Police Court yesterday and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. A young man of 23 told the court that he had met Leaning while he was inspecting a stall at the exhibition of New Zealand-made goods in the Civic Square on the evening of March 24. The two fell into conversation, during the course of which the young man mentioned that he was going to Waitomo. Leaning, the witness said, asked him to write to him while he was there, and suggested that he should go too. He then asked the witness to accompany him to his shop, where he would give him his address. The young man then detailed what took place, and in consequence he made a complaint to the police. Leaning asked him to come back next night, he said. The following night, accompanied by Detective McWhirter, the witness again called at Leaning’s shop and went in alone. When the witness came out the detective went into the shop and arrested Leaning. “When arrested,” the detective told the court, “he said, ‘I suppose I will have to Day for my mistakes.’ ”