CRIPPLE CLAIMS £193

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 901, 19 February 1930, Page 16

CRIPPLE CLAIMS £193

ACTION FOLLOWS ASSAULT CASE INNOCENCE AGAIN URGED The ex-licensee of Gleeson’s Hotel. Thomas Richards, who was convicted in the Police Court last November of assaulting Kenneth Douglas, faced a civil claim for £193 at the Magistrate's Court yesterday, the action being the result of the same set of circumstances that had led to the assault charge. Douglas claimed £l5O general damages, £2l medical expenses, £l2 loss of time from his employment as an advertising agent, and £lO damages to clothing. It was his client’s intention to endeavour to obtain a reversal of the magistrate’s decision, according to Mr. Dyson, who appeared for Richards. Following the conviction he had been barred from racecourses. He had also lost control of the note! through the endorsement of his licence following his conviction at the same time on a charge of supplying liqpor after hours. Plaintiff's evidence was similar to that given in the Police Court. The date of the assault was given as September 27. when witness and two friends, George Couch and Leslie Wilson, had gone to Gleeson’s Hotel for a drink in the evening. Richards had attacked witness after a political argument and finally thrown him out into the street. Richards was under the influence of liquor. Douglas enumerated his injuries, adding that he had been away from his work for nearly three weeks. Couch and Wilson also gave evidence on behalf of claimant. ABSENT THAT EVENING Mr. Dyson outlined the defence. It was urged that Richards had been absent from the hotel on that evening. There had been no after-bour drinking. One of the barmen, Porter, would say that he had seen a man resembling plaintiff assaulted in the street after talking to a man named Tom Scott. Scott had later offered to pay the £lO fine imposed upon Richards, but that was unsatisfactory to defendant as he wanted the decision reversed. Porter and Scott would be called as witnesses. Richards, in evidence, gave his age 57. His conviction on the assault charge was his first appearance in court. “The men are swinging it on to me because they thought they could get money out of me,” he added. “Couch was round the hotel seeing what he could get.” The magistrate, Mr. F. H. Lovien, made an adjournment of one month.