BIRKENHEAD FEUD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 497, 29 October 1928, Page 1

BIRKENHEAD FEUD

WHARF CARETAKER ASSAULTED BOOKSELLER FINED £5 Various little differences that have cropped up from time to time between a shopkeeper on the Birkenhead Wharf and the Harbour Board caretaker came to a head last Tuesday. As a result Walter Seddon Harding, a bookseller, aged 40, was charged at the Police Court this morning with assaulting Robert Douglas. Mr. W. D. Anderson entered a plea of not guilty. Outlining complainant’s case, Mr. G. R. Gray said that Harding owned a bookstall on the Birkenhead Wharf. He also occupied part of one of the Harbour Board’s sheds, which lie used as a storeroom. Harding resents the caretaker entering the shed, which he seems to regard as his own property, continued counsel. In the course of his duties last Tuesday evening Mr. Douglas had to enter the storeroom and was assaulted by defendant. Giving his age as 61, Robert Douglas, who had stitches in his lip and showed signs of a recent black eye, said that he had been 12 years caretaker of the wharf. On Tuesday evening he had gone to the shed to replace a ladder that belonged there. Defendant had told him that he had no right there, adding that he had paid for tlie lock on the door. Witness turned his back to hang up the ladder, and, when he turned round again, Harding hit him with a kerosene tin.

“I chased him into shop and went home,” said Mr. Douglas. “Eventually I went to see a doctor, and stitches were put in my lip.” Witness admitted that he had used some bad language but refuted Mr Anderson’s suggestion that he was drunk, saying that he had only two light shandies that day. Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., considered that two light shandies would have little effect on a man of 61, and his action in climbing a ladder to attend to the wharf lights did not seem that of a drunken man.

Defendant’s story conflicted greatly with that of Mr. Douglas. According to Harding, complainant had said to him, “I have a good mind to give you one,” and had then chased him into his shop and attacked him, breaking a glass show-case. Harding admitted that the injuries suffered by Mr. Douglas were probably his work as, when he got the upper hand, he had hit the old man once or twice.

“Bob and I have been good friends and settled our differences amicably up to this,” concluded defendant.' “I was certainly not the aggressor.” Jack Bynch, a bus driver, thought that Mr. Douglas was drunk, though he might have been staggering from the effect of his injuries. He had advised both men to hush the affair up as he thought Douglas would be dismissed if it came out.

Harding mentioned that two women had seen the whole affair. He had advertised for them without result.

“I have been told two different tales, and I cannot believe the defendant,” commented Mr. Hunt. “An old man would not provoke a man 20 years younger to fight with him.” Harding was fined £5, half of that amount to go to the complainant.