Attempted Rape.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3097, 21 January 1879, Page 2

Attempted Rape.

A grave charge of an attempt to com* mit a rape on a married woman will come before the Police Court to-day. Thomas Williamson Brown has been arrested on warrant on this charge. The prosecuiriz is Mrs Evinsen, wife of Charles EvinseD, of the Scotia Hotel, Hobson street, and. the prisoner is a comparative stranger in New Zealand. He recently arrived from Australia, and was employed as tickettaker during the time Madame Cora and Val Vose performed at the Lome-street Hall. He had been at the Scotia Hotel on Wednesday night, but did not stay there. On Thursday evening he required a bed, to which Mr Evinsen showed him. Mrs Evinsen had in the meantime retired for the night, closing but not locking her door, as her husband was still engaged at the hotel bar. According to Mrs Evinsen's account, she must have been in bed for some time, but at about half-past 11 o'clock she was aroused. Some one was in the bed, and she called out: "Is that you, Charlie?" The man replied in the affirmative, but she passed her hand over his face and detected the fraud, and at once screamed for assistance. The man arrested is close-shaved, and has only a moustache, while Mr Evinsen has a beard of some length. Mrs Evinsen's screams of course brought the servants and landlord, and the invader decamped post-haste, but one of the girls saw him rush to his own room from Mrs Evinsen's, and identified him, although when search was made he appeared to be fast asleep in his own room. A warrant was taken out, and he was arrested yesterday. The accused had not been lodging at the hotel, and was a stranger there. On Thursday night he had been shown to a room by the landlord and it transpires that, before his entrance into Mrs Evinsen's room, he had effected an entrance into a room occupied by one of the servant girls, and been driven but of it. These are the circumstances as they now appear, and which will be enquired into to-day. The charge is a very serious one, and it will come before the Police Magistrate today, to take evidence as to whether there is a prima facie case to send for trial to the Supreme Court.—Herald.