CAR DRIVER ASSAULTED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 256, 19 March 1913, Page 5

CAR DRIVER ASSAULTED.

MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR, Per Press Association. Auckland, Tuesday. There was considerable improvement yesterday in the condition of the man De Enieste, who was the victim of assault in Havr Road early on Saturday morning. A Herald representative who visited him in hospital, found him with his head swathed in bandages, and a most conspicuous black eve. He was however. able to give, a more detailed account of the mysterious proceedings. Shortly after 11 p.m. on Friday, he said, while at the car stand in Queen street, lie answered a telephone, call. A man's voice asked for another car on the stand, lint the ear was away at the time, and De Ernesto was told that his car would do. lie was to go to the man-o'-war steps, and take two men to Three Kings, calling in at Newmarket station. De Erneste went to the''appointed place, where two rather roughlooking men hoarded the car and' were driven to Xiuvmarke.t station, where they wot out to look for a man named "Bob." The latter, however, was not to he found, and the party proceeded to Three Kings, where the men instructed De Erneste to turn up a certain street. He did so, and. shortly afterwards, the men decided that they were in the wrong street, and requested the driver to proceed to the next. .•Thinking that they were behaviiisr in a peculiar manner, he asked them if they really knew where they wanted to go. They said that they were sure that the next street (Havr Road) was the one, and he accordingly took them there. He looked at liis watch, and found that it was close upon midnight. About half way up Havr Road, he continued, the men said that they were near the gate of a certain house, and wanted to <>'et oitt. De' Krnesle stopped the car and asked them if he lmd better not drive them right to the gate, and. after some demur, fli"j. consented. De Erneste then rail -the i'iiv into the fir*t gate, and that was'the'' last he remembered, lie considers, that he must have been hit by two full brer bottles, as his clothes were e -iaU"d with beer, and the bottom of the car Wis ■drown with "lass -amongst it two bot-' tb> necks, with the capsules still ,oij. When he returned to consciousness he v-is lying on the road feeling.very sick. Tie was fimnd. as before stated, by ."\{r.. Pri son, and after a rest was taken to tli- Hospital. De Rvneste could not account for (lie affair in anv way. lie had not seen-the Iwo men' before, but would' recognise them a.'jain if he saw them.