AFFRAY BETWEEN WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 67, 19 March 1919, Page 5

AFFRAY BETWEEN WOMEN.

SEQUEL TO PROSECUTION. £207 DAMAGES CLAIMED. The civil action, Mrs. Marjorie -Juanita Olga Richards v. Joseph and Florence Gardiner, was continued yesterday at the Supreme Court, before Mr. Justice Hosking and a jury of four. Mr. Singer appeared for the plaintiff and Mr. Ostler for the defendants. Tha plaintiff claimed £207 damages for alleged malicious pro- • seeution in June last, when she was I acquitted of a charge of assaulting the female defendant by pointing a revolver at her. The plaintiff alleged that Mrs. Gardiner knocked her down in the street, and subsequently, when the plaintiff tried to turn her out of the house in which they both lived, Mrs. Gardiner resisted, and in the struggle got hold of a revolver. When the police arrived, she alleged, Mrs. Gardiner accused her of trying to shoot her, with the result stated. Mrs. Gardiner, giving evidence, admitted striking the other woman under provocation, but told a totally different story of the events in the house. She said that she and her little boy were retiring for the night, when Mrs. Richards came into the room with a revolver and fired it while her back was turned. She tried to take the revolver away, and after a struggle succeeded in doing so. She ran into the passage and out of the front door, which was then closed on her. Her little boy was inside, and, after knocking in vain, she broke the glass of the door with the revolver. When the. police arrived Mrs. Richards told a constable to take no notice ox her, adding, "The woman's mad. A revolver went oil, that's all." Witness replied, "It was you that fired it." She did not lay any. complaint or do anything to institute thi* prosecution. The revolver cartridges found by the police in her luggage must have been put there by the plaintill or someone else. Sub-inspector Wohlmann stated that he visited the house of the parties on the night when the trouble occurred. No mark of a bullet was found in any part of the rodta where the revolver was stated to have been fired. He examined the revolver, which, in his opinion, had ' been fired within twelve hours before his i examination. The charge against Mrs. • Richards, he said, was not laid on account of any specific complaint by Mrs. : Gardiner, but upon a review of the whole circumstances, particularly Mrs. Rich- . ards' admission that the revolver was hers, and the fact that there was no time for collusion between Mrs. Gardiner and her little boy, who gave very similar i accounts of the occurrences.

The jury were asked to determine, first, whether the female defendant honestly believed that the shot had, been fired: and, second, whether she was actuated by malice in informing the police.

The jury answered the first question in the negative and the second in the affirmative. They awarded plaintiff £10 general and f 7 7/ special damages.