ISLANDER CHARGED

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 12, 15 January 1934, Page 8

ISLANDER CHARGED

LETTER SENT TO GIRL.

COMMENT BY MAGISTRATE.

"AN ACT OF STRATEGY."

(Isy Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

HAMILTON, this day.

'"In recent years there have been several tragedies in Npw Zealand arising out of cases not dissimilar from this one, and it is the duty of the Court to prevent these tragedies," said Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the Hamilton Magistrate's Court this morning, when a Niue Islander, Koo Seifar (30), was charged with threatening to kill a single woman, Hilda Rye (18), of Te Kowhai.

Senior-Sergeant Power explained that the police were offering no evidence on the indictable charge, and that the application from the girl that defendant be bound over to keep the peace was substituted. Sergeant Power stated that the girl Rye had kept company for two years with defendant. On December 23 Seifar went to Te Kowhai, where the girl was working, and verbally threatened to shoot her, on account of his suspicions that the girl was keeping company with another man. He later repeated the threats in a letter. The girl was afraid he would carry out his threat.

Counsel stated that there was an understanding of marriage between accused and the girl when she reached 21. The girl had "dropped" him, but he had no int**» ion of harming her. He had only threatened her as an act of strategy to retain her affections. Defendant, he said, bore an excellent character.

Seifar was ordered to give a surety of £25 to keep the peace and also to find two other sureties of a like amount.

"It is an indictable offence to give a bogus complaint to the police, and you arc liable to a heavy penalty," said Mr.' Paterson.