GARROTTED AND ROBBED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 144, 18 June 1915, Page 6

GARROTTED AND ROBBED.

WITHIN CALL OF QUEEN STREET. COMPLAINT OF A VISITOR

In consequence of a complaint by a visitor to Auckland that he waa garrotted in Lome Street on the evening of Saturday week. KtiocKed unconscious' and robbed of the little money he had, two young men—Fred. Spencer (21) and l'eter Graham (20)— who had been arrested by Delect ive yuariermain, came before Mr. F. V. Frazer, S.M.. today, charged that they stole 3/8 from Charles Clayton. Clayton, a man oi small stature, and about 33 years of age, stated that between 7 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. on the Saturday in question he was walking up Lome Street on his way to the Salvation Army Workmen's Home, vvtiere he had been staying, when a man standing beside a doorway spoke to him. He didn't catch the remark, but stopped and said "\Yho's that}" He was immediately garrotted by another man who came behind him. The two men hustied him inside the doorway hy which the hrst man had been standing, and right through to the back of the house, givin" him a hit on the side of the head as he continued to .struggle. He still struggled as they got to the hack of the and he got hit on the other side of the head, and remembered nothing more till he woke up, some hours later, lyinz be-Mde an alleyway off Lome Sti-eeL He had had only 3/8 in his pocket, but that was gone. In addition to the wound on the head, where he had been hit, he had a rib broken. A few days later he pointed Spencer out in the street as one of his assailants In reply t o Mr. J. K. l.midon (tor accused) Clayton said he ha« been cooking at a bush camp in Poverty Bay, and came to Auckland about five week's a«o He didn't have much money when 'lie arrived, nnd alter .-laying a couple of days at the People's I'alace went to the \\orkmens Home. He admitted bavin" drunk a bit freely on the Friday before the robbery, but on the Saturday he had ha.l only two drinks, he said" He denied a suggestion that he was drunk and had gone to a house in Lome Street and insulted a woman there. He constdered that Spencer had done the garrotting, and that Graham had a-sin-ed him later. The case is proceeding.