AN UNFORTUNATE CASE
OW MAN COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. M the &M, Court yesterday, before Mr. H. S. Mtsberbert, S.M., Patrick Dale, an inmate of the Old People's Home, was charged with having assaulted Alexander Allen, so as to .cause actual bouny harm, at the Home, on Ju.y 23rd. sergeant Haddrell conducted tiie prosecution, and Mr. Grey appeared for accused. Sergeant i-jadureh suited um. the accused had struck Alien on the iu.ad two ox three times with a poker (prouuced). He admitted that there had oe c n very great provocation, but hard words broke ho' bones, and when a man retaliated with a poKer tue matter must K' dealt with. > I'toe matter .was before the court last Week', when the men were cuarged with breaches pf the regulations governing tjie Home, The circumstances were that Alletf iiftd.toen down town on leave, and had returned to tne*~"Jme very He used very abusive language \the matron said it could hardly have been worse) towards Dale, twitting him on accouut of his religious beliefs. This ffontinued for some time, and then Allen made an uncomplimentary reference to Dale's mother. That exasperated Dale, ifiß4.fe£ Jt r . u «H i ll ?..fitter man across the h&ld with a poker two or three times, i " ffhe matron, in her evidence, said mat Dale suffered from a very bad form of I heart disease. >. ■ | A fellow inmate named Mitchell de- ! scribed the occurrence, and in answer | to Mr. Grey, said that before Dale took | the poker Allen rose from his seat, and stood in front of Dale, and continued the flow of foul language. Chas. M. Lepper, secretary to the Board, gave evidence that Dale had admitted the assault, but said he had been so exasperated that he could not help himself. , Dr. Home gave ev&jfence that he had found Allen suffering from three contused scalp wounds On the crown of the head, but they were not serious, »nc healed Without any complications ii three or four days. Allen was detainee in the hospital. .• - :, \, Allen,; who had been subpoened t< give evidence, was reported by the ser geant to have left- the- town. Upon the accused being asked'to plead Mr. Grey briefly addressed the court. H pointed out that the accused was i very old man, 65 years of age, sufferin, from heart disease in a very dangeroii • form. His Worship had had the accuse before him only a week ago, and ha into the whole set of ciroun stances, and fined him for a breach c the regulations of the institution. H had received extraordinary provocatioi such, he ventured to say, as few me would have borne patiently as this ol 1 man had borne it. If the prosecutio persisted in this very serious charg which envolved very serious cons< quences, he would have to reserve h defence. But in view of the whole w ' cumstances, in view of the fact that tl j man had already been punished for h t _ act, and that whilst,the matter was,sti -,. fresh in his mind he had stated to tl secretary-of the'board that, he.had be ( a unable to control himself, Jie suggestc ~ that the ends of justice would be amp served by a charge of common assaul a to which he would advise his client ~ plead guilty. He would then call wi r> nesses to give evidence as to the amoui of provocation and in extenuation < d the offence. Though guilty of a techi 3 , cal breach of the law the accused's pr vocation had been so great, so sustaine and so continuous that very few mi I, would have endured so patiently all thi , 8 he had suffered. They had it from tl matron of the institution that Dale hj ,t on more than one occasion complain I of the conduct of Allen. He submitt that justice would be substantially sa a isfled by a charge and conviction of coi mom assault. Jhe Magistrate said that he was n it allowed to express an opinion, but mu II leave it to the sergeant. Sergeant 'Haddrell said that it won be difficult to make the punishment f in a common assault fit this crime. T d accused might easily have been call upon to answer a charge of manslaugl tß AAi r ' Grey remark ed that evident Allen didn't attach much importance st the assault, for he had failed to put a. an appearance at the hearing. Mr. Fitzherbert said the court cot !S no * Col Jf ider Allen - but the P"Wie safel i« Mr. Grey remarked that the man w poor and weak, and ill. He had d ney l a7ld Jt seemed an <*traordina m l to set the e:a horate and expensi er .? ach i ner y of the Supreme Court in n tion for this case. *' ~s f Haddrell then announc • that he could not see his wav to .redu the charge. If a . ma n chose to use m poker as a weapon he must take t iQ consequences. ; ' The accused pleaded not guilty a d- LTr, ed ; hi !, def r e - He was then co * mitted to the Supreme Court for tr •« at the next sessions in' New Plymom opening m September 13th r- baif^^ 67 br ° USht UP the ( > ueßtion ol Go?? S ' M ' : Can y ° U fi " d a snrety ' J J Mr. Grey : I think I can, your W. ship Id give one myself sooner th see the old man go to goal • 9 The Magistrate decided to admit t of C S n " h j" ° W " reco « ni ' sall
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19100805.2.4
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 100, 5 August 1910, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
930AN UNFORTUNATE CASE Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 100, 5 August 1910, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taranaki Daily News. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.