MOB’S FRANTIC STRUGGLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 348, 8 May 1928, Page 9

MOB’S FRANTIC STRUGGLE

ATTEMPT TO ENTER COURT SORDID SYDNEY TRIAL (United P. A.—By Telegraph — Copyright.) SYDNEY, Monday. The trial was commenced to-day of Herbert Wilson, Frederick Payne, Phillip Jeffs, Ernest Wilson and Leslie Heath, in connection with the alleged assault upon Mrs. Maddocks on March 6, in Darlinghurst. Great public interest was manifested in the trial, and a large crowd of people frantically struggled to enter the Court. With the exception of Heath the accused are charged with a capital offence. Heath is indicted as an alleged accessory after the fact. All the accused pleaded not guilty. On the evening of March 6, Mrs. Maddocks was walking home when, she alleged, she was seized by two men and dragged to an adjacent block of flats. There, she said, she was assaulted by seven men. When she was allowed to depart she informed the police, who arrested the five men named *n the message. They were brought before a magistrate in the Sydney Police Court on March 23 and were committed for trial. The hearing was in camera. The action of the magistrate in excluding the Press was widely condemned. Many leading barristers expressed the opinion that he made a serious mistake in conducting such a case behind closed doors.