MIDNIGHT STREET FIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1932, Page 13

MIDNIGHT STREET FIGHT.

THREE MAORIS PINED.

HOOLIGANISM AT THE PA. (From Our Owu Correspondent.) TE KUITI, Tuesday. The story of a midnight brawl was narrated at the Police Court to-day, before Mr. F. W. Platts, S.M., when Kako Nikora, Arthur Turner. Len Wi and Hepi Wi, were charged with abusive language and riotous behaviour in a public place.

The evidence of the police showed that the accused natives on a recent Saturday evening made themselves objectionable to the inhabitants of. the pa by visiting i the meeting house, where a number of natives were asleep, and committing acts of hooliganism. One of the defendants, J?ako Nikora, after riding on horseback into a billiard saloon on the main street, wont to the pa and performed similar feats, and finally threw a large basin of water over those who were asleep. Two native constables in charge of the pa. pursued Nikora and his companions in a motor car, and overtook them ill the centre of the town, where a fight took place. Coats, hats and shirts were strewn about the street, and two of the defendants attacked a native policeman, using fists and boots. Counsel for the accused natives held that although the private native police had certain powers inside the pa they were wrong in setting out on a punitive expedition through the town. This the defendants objected to, holding it to be the work of the European police. The evidence disclosed that the first blow was struck by a Maori private constable named Blake. Three rounds followed, Blake winning the first two and Wi the third. Then Constable Collins and Sergeant Fearnley arrived, and the fight ended. , Accused were fined, respectively, £3, £2 and £1, with £2 10/ costs.