“GENUINE MISTAKE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 937, 2 April 1930, Page 10

“GENUINE MISTAKE”

HELD PARTY IN WRONG HOUSE ORDERED TO PAY COSTS Invited to a musical evening at No. 33 in a Devonport Street, two men entered by mistake a house several doors away. They spent the evening there awaiting the arrival of their hostess, and were intimately arrested for being found without excuse on enclosed premises. This morning, at the Police Court, Alexander Addison Struthers, an accountant, aged 37, and John Robert Bruce, a salesman, aged 41, were charged with being found on enclosed premises at Devonport on March. 26. Struthers was also charged with Indecent assault. Mr. Singer appeared for both men and entered pleas of not guilty. Mr. Sullivan, representing the woman in whose house the men -had intruded, said his client now realised that a genuine mistake had been made. The men had believed they were in the right house and, having had a few drinks, were inclined to be frivolous. The woman did not wish to undergo the humiliation cf entering the witness-box and wished that, if it were possible, the prosecution should be withdrawn. She would not have called the police had she known the true facts at the time. Senior-Sergeant O’Grady said that ; there was no corroboration of the ‘ evidence on the charge of indecent assault, and, on the advice of Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., the charge was withdrawn. The senior-sergeant’s version of the affair was that the two men had gone to the house with a quantity of beer They were told they were at the wrong house, but refused to believe the girl who told them. Thej' had stayed in the house until the woman who occupied it came in, and theii conduct toward both her and h.ei daughter had been very bad. “They behaved like blackguards, even ii they were respectable men,” declared the senior-sergeant. It was aboui 1.30 a.m. when the men left the house after the woman had called for assist ance. and they we're arrested at. the

wharf. Mr. Singer suggested that, in strict law, the men had not been unlawfully on the premises, as a genuine mistake had been made. The woman who haa given the party at No. 33 j was present to give evidence if necessary. Senior-Sergeant O’Grady: There is no suggestion of the police withdrawing the charge. They were in the wrong house and they were told. Both men were convicted and ordered to pay expenses amounting to £4 16s 9d. Remarking that the men had never been in court previously, and that it was all a mistake, Mr. Singer asked for suppression of the names. His application was refused. Mr. Sullivan asked f- r the suppression of his client’s name, but the magistrate pointed out that it had not been mentioned.