MELEE AT DANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 650, 30 April 1929, Page 18

MELEE AT DANCE

WARM DISPUTE OVER ICE-CREAM ASSAULT ON CATERER (From Our Own Correspondent) WHAN CARE I, Monday. Arising out of a dispute over ice cream at the Maungakarainea sports dance on April 4, Thos. O’Shea, Edward G. Wright, and G. G. Rowntree appeared before Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in the Whangarei Police Court to-day, charged with assaulting E. A. Bates, of Whangarei, one of the caterers supplying refreshments at the dance. The police prosecuted, and stressed the badly bruised condition of Bates’s face when they got to the scene at 2 a.m. The evidence disclosed abominable language by Wright, and two witnesses said they saw him kick Bates, who had fallen to the ground in a struggle with O’Shea, who had in his capacity of M.C. closed with Bates in an endeavour to get him outside the liall. The magistrate dismissed the case against OShea, and fined Wright £5 and costs, and Rowntree £3 and costs. Mr. Luxford said it was usual to allow half of the fine to the man who had suffered some injury in an assult case, but he would not make any order in Bates’s favour in this instance.