ASSAULT ON STEAMER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1938, Page 5

ASSAULT ON STEAMER

\ ENGINEERS KNOCKED DOWN. SEAMAN SENT TO GAOL. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) BLENHEIM, July 11. A dispute that occurred in the stokehold of the overseas steamer Hororata while she was anchored in the Wanganui roadstead on July 6 resulted in the appearance before justices in the Magistrates’ Court in Picton today of Francis Joseph Ferns, seaman, who was charged with assaulting the second engineer, James Davidson, on the high seas. The proceedings were instituted on the information of the master of the vessel, Captain T. L. Maltby, who stated that he regarded the incident too seriously to be dealt with on board and placed the matter in the hands of the police on the arrival of the vessel at Picton on Saturday. Ferns pleafled not guilty. The evidence showed that defendant, in the course of a dispute with the second engineer in the stokehold regarding work and overtime, knocked the engineer down. He also knocked down the seventh engineer, who had intervened, and was restrained only when the chief engineer arrived and picked up a monkey wrench and warned him to desist. The justices convicted Ferns and sentenced him to 21 days’ imprisonment. He was ordered to be returned to England by the first available New Zealand Shipping Company vessel.