SPEAKER CAPTURES PRYING VAGRANT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 337, 24 April 1928, Page 9

SPEAKER CAPTURES PRYING VAGRANT

MIDNIGHT STRUGGLE SIR C. STATHAM UNHURT (Special to THE SUy * DUNEDIN, Monday. When Miss Statham, daughter of Sir Charles Statham, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, saw a man looking in at her window as she was going to bed about midnight on Sunday, she called her father, who ran out and caught the man. The intruder struggled and dragged Sir Charles out on to the road, where the struggle continued. Miss Stathsm, to help her father, followed him out into the road, but. his opponent several times, he managed to break free. Sir Charles was unhurt, but the other man was cut and bruised. As a result, William Henry Reay, a signwriter, was charged in the Police Court this morning, before Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M., with being found without lawful excuse in the yard of No. 2 Hawthorne Avenue. Reay pleaded that he had been drinking all day and could remember nothing until he felt the girl striking him. “I did not know at* that time,” he said, “that the house belonged to Sir Charles Statham. I have nothing to hide, and have not been in any other trouble in my life.” The chief detective said that Sir Charles had stated that he did not detect any sign of liquor on the accused while he was struggling with him. The Accused: When I heard the word “police” in the garden I straightened up considerably. The magistrate ordered the police j to detain Reay in custody until Friday and have him medically examined I by the gaol surgeon.