INQUEST AT NAPIER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8392, 5 April 1907, Page 6

INQUEST AT NAPIER.

By Telegraph—Press Association. NAPIER, April 4. The inquest on the man George Read, who died in the. Hospital, on Tuesday, was concluded to-day. Evidence was adduced to show that he had gone to Hastings on Saturday evening, and had returned to Ngatarawa early on Sunday morning, in an intoxicated condition, and had commenced smashing .windows and furniture in the whare occupied by a youth named VVindus. Read struck Windus on the face with a broom, and also struck him with a table leg, with Which Windus, subsequently hit Read on the legs. A scuffle then ensued, the two men closing, and after a struggle both .fell together, Read underneath. Windus then hit Read two or three times on the face with his hands, and Read went away, returning later on with pole with which he struck Windus on the head, stunning him, but other station hands coming on the scene, took Read away and so prevented Read from further assaulting Windus. Windus stated in his evidence that there had been no quarrel between Read and himself. Read was about the station on Sunday and Monday, but did not complain of feeling unwell. He only said his eye was sore. On being driven to Hastings, on Monday afternoon, he said he must have been given some very bad liquor at Hastings on the previous Saturday to make him behave as he had done. Windus' evidence as to the row was corroborated by two of the station hands. The jury returned a verdict that death was due to a fracture of the skull, but that there was no evidence to show how the injury was caused.