WINDOW SHATTERED

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20503, 20 May 1938, Page 8

WINDOW SHATTERED

MAN’S STRANGE ACT THOUGHT HE WAS INSANE Convinced that he was mentally affected yet certified by a doctor at the Waikato Hospital that he was normal, a man left the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and, after coming into town, threw the bottle of medicine the doctor had given him through a plate-glass window at the Civic Theatre. He was Francis Roberts (40), an ex-forester, who pleaded that he remembered nothing of the incident when charged with wilful damage before Messrs R. T. Reid and G. K. Sinclair, J’s.P. in the Police Court, Hamilton, to-day. Accused was convicted and fined' £4 In default 14 days’ imprisonment. Florence Beange, an usher at the Civic Theatre, said In evidence that at 6.25 p.m. on Wednesday she was In the office when she heard a plateglass window crash. Hurrying out she saw a man leaving the theatre. There was a medicine bottle, unbroken, lying near the shattered glass. The bottle bore the label of the Waikato Hospital and on it was accused’s nameSydney A. Dye, manager of the theatre said the window was valued at not less than £4 15s, probably more. Constable C. N. Crisp, of Hamilton, told the Court of having taken a statement from accused after he had gone to Cambridge and given himself up to the police. Accused said he had been to the Waikato Hospital where he had told a doctor he felt “queer in the head." The doctor examined the man and found him normal but prescribed some medicine. Not satisfied, accused returned to town and chartered a taxi. He told the driver that he was going to the police to tell them he was insane. The taxi-driver then put him out of the car near the Civic Theatre. It was then that accused threw the medicine through the window.

“From his appearance he wants cleaning up and we can’t let a man like that wander about town without any fixed abode,” said the Bench.