SEARCH FOR WIFE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 938, 3 April 1930, Page 1

SEARCH FOR WIFE

IRATE HUSBAND ATTACKS HER ESCORT MAGISTRATE’S SYMPATHY Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. Finding his wife in the company of another man. Eugene Doherty struck out at the man he imagined to be the disturber of his domestic bliss. He was convicted on a charge of assault, but the magistrate imposed no penalty beyond the payment of expenses, remarking that the man assaulted was largely responsible for the trouble he had brought on himself. Eugene Doherty, alias Halfarthy. was charged in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday with assaulting John Traynor. Giving evidence Travnor said he went to a house in Ngaio on Sunday afternoon. March 9, in company with Mrs. Doherty and another woman whose name he did not know and Thomas Ridout. They were listening to a gramo phone when Doherty rushed in and tlie next thing he knew he was kicked in the face and about the body. After washing his wounds he went outside to find out the reasou for the attack, but Doherty hit him on the head with a tomahawk, knocking him down. On the first occasion he had met Doherty he had asked witness to get a room for him. “Doherty had given his wife a black eye/* added the witness. He said that he and Doherty had been fined £1 each for fighting in the street, which was the result of Doherty knocking his wife about. He thought Doherty had harboured a grievance against him ever since. Doherty said he was a ship’s fireman and went to sea under the name of Hugh Halfarthy. Several months ago he had had a fight with Traynor over his wife outside the Terminus Hotel. He had told Traynor and others to keep away from liis wife. As a result of some information he received when he returned in his ship from Westport he went out to Ngaio for his wife, whom he found to be under the influence of liquor. Traynor struck him and there was a scuffle inside the house. Traynor was stopping him from seeing his wife and outside he knocked Traynor down, but did not strike him with a tomahawk. The magistrate said he thought it was clear that the assault had been committed by defendant, but it was his impression that the man assaulted was largely responsible for the trouble he had brought on himself. IHe proposed to convict Doherty. In view of the fact that Doherty had been i in custody since his arrest in Auckland on March 21 he was convicted and ordered to pay expenses, 15s.