HOTEL AFFRAY

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20907, 12 September 1939, Page 9

HOTEL AFFRAY

FIREMAN COMMITS ASSAULTS PRISON TERMS IMPOSED (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Monday A sentence of one month’s imprisonment with hard labour was imposed upon Ernest Sheridan, a fireman, aged 25, who appeared before Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, charged with assaulting Constable E. T. Martin, and a further month was imposed on him for assaulting D. H. McGillivray, a barman. On charges relating to damage to the constable’s clothing and wrist watch, he was convicted and ordered to pay the amount of the damage. Sub-Inspector D. J. O’Neill, who said that the accused was possibly one of the worst characters in the whole of New Zealand, and caused trouble wherever he went, added that on Saturday afternoon, Sheridan, in a semidrunken condition, went into the Hotel St. George and assaulted a barman without provocation, the man receiving a wound on the forehead. Sheridan was ejected, and immediately started to fight with another man. A crowd assembled, and two constables arrested the two men, placing them in a taxi. Sheridan continued to res,i6t violently, using his boots and fists, and also his teeth. At the station he was still violent, and had to be handcuffed. Sheridan said that he went into th© hotel on his own with a considerable amount of money, and men started to put their hands in his pockets to get it, and he hit out,