ASSAULT ON VICAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 40

ASSAULT ON VICAR.

APOLOGY AND £20 DAMAGES. Wantage County Court was crowded when the vicar of TJfflngton, Berkshire, the Rev. Edward Macgregor Hadow, sued Mr. Henry Weylantl Martin Powell, an old Eton boy, now a trainer of horses, for £50 damages for assault. Mr.. G. K. Hose, barrister, for the vicar said that Mr. Hadow had been vicar of Uflington for 16 years; Mr. Powell had only recently gone to live In the district. He Was accepted by the vicar as a friend, and he and his wife wore frequent visitors at the vicarage. The assault took place in the presence of several of Mr. Hatlow's parishioners, outside an inn one Saturday evening. "Mr. Powell," Mr. Rose added, "sent a peremptory note up to the vicar asking him to meet him in the White Horse Yard." The vicar did not go, but later Mr. Powell met him In thu street, violently assaulted him, knocked him down, and kicked him. The vicar, in evidence, said that on the day before the assault he went Into Oxford with Mrs. Powell. She went shopping, and he went to the Clarendon. They came back to Dfflngton together, and Mrs. Powell had tea at the vicarage. On the next day, Saturday, March 6, Mr. Powell's groom brought a note from his master asking the vicar to meet him in the White Horse yard that night. He asked Mrs. Powell to go and ten her husband that he had another engagement. Mrs. Powell went, but came back to the vicarage, and wept in the arms of Mrs. Hadow, saying her husband had said: "Don't interfere with mc. I have got a job to do," and then struck her. "That night, about 7 o'clock." the vicar added, "I was returning home when Mr. Powell came out of the White Horse Inn, seized mc by the arm, and said; "I have a word to say to ? you. What have you been saying to Mrs. Summers about mc? 1 hear you told her that I went a perfect disgrace to the meet the other day, and that I frequented publichouses." "He then struck mc on the jaw and knocked mc down on the ground." After a suggestion by the judge, Mr. Powell apologised for the assault, withdrew all allegations against the vicar, and agreed to pay £20 damages and costs. The damages are to be given by the vicar to a hospital. The vicar Is 61 years of ago, and Mr. Powell and his wife /are -both 24.