BATTERING A WOMAN.

NZ Truth, 15 March 1924, Page 8

BATTERING A WOMAN.

♦ ' » (From "Truth's" Hamilton Rep.) The brutal treatment of the woman who acted as his housekeeper led to a Kakahi farmer, named Samuel Gawith, appearing before Mr. W. H. Platts, S.M., charged with assault. It seems that the two went to the Kakahi sports recently, and, both apparently having "taken a littlo too much," they had words on the way home, when Gawith treated the woman, whose name Is Esther Ellen Jones, rather roughly, and addressed her ln anything but gentlemanly language. On reaching the house he told her, not over gently, to go inside and he would' pay her off. He then, according to her story, gave her a crack with his fist, and repeated, the blow eight or nine times, knocking her on to the bed. The woman displayed a bruised face to the Court, which she declared to be the result of his brutality. Gawith declared that ho had only a couple of nips of whisky at tho sports. Mrs. Jones was the worse for drink. She acted as his housekeeper for four years. On reaching home on the afternoon m question, he told her to got a wriggle on and milk the cows, whereupon she charged at him and spat m his face. He may have pushed her on to the bed, but had not struck her. She struck the bed, he said, and pushed It about half a chain. The Magistrate declared that a cruel assault had been committed by defendant, for which there was no excuse, and he fined him £8 and costs, half the fine to go to tho woman.