KICKED IN FACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 283, 29 November 1937, Page 11

KICKED IN FACE.

MOTHER AND CHILD.

THIERS BRUTAL ATTACK.

EIGHT TEARS IK GAOL.

(From Onr Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, November 22.

To-day a day labourer. Alick Bannerman. aged (12, was sentenced at Quarter Sessions to eight years' imprisonment for violent assault on a woman and her infant son. Tin circumstances of this crime were remarkable, and the assault was so ferocious and brutal that a great deal of public interest attached to the trial.

It appears that on September 30 a man called at the house of Mr X C Houghton in Bradley s Head Road at Mosman — one of our most beautiful marine suburbs on the North Shore— and asked for gardening work. Airs Houghton who opened the door, gave him a job but told him that her husband had pone to the citv. A little later the man, after some* casual remark, attacked her and snatched at her purse which she happened to have in tier hand.

Mrs Houghton resisted and the man punched her in the face and kicked her brutally abo it the bodv. The woman's ♦ u n 'i. a i dl,,d three Vcars old > r"*h«l to t " e hel P of his mother, crying out "You shall not hurt my mummv!" and the man kicked him in the face and hurled him across the room. It happened that ft neighbour on the opposite side of the road had seen a man walk into Mrs. Houghton's gate and a few minutes later she heard loud screams from the house. Staggered Down Path. Mrs. Powell went to her door to watch and she saw the little bov staggering down the side path from the house covered with blood. The man she hud previously seen then came out of the house and walked quickly toward the gate with a purse in his hand. Mrs. Powell promptly stopped a lorry which was driving past and the son of the owner, a young man named Jarman, seizing a spade which Mrs. Powell had ready, got to Mrs. Houghton's gate just as the man was opening it. Brandishing his weapon Jarman drove the man back toward the house and held him at bay while the police were rung up. Meanwhile other neighbours, roused by Mrs. Houghton's cries, rushed into the house and found her and the little boy in a terrible condition.

The constable who got to the house flr9t attempted to describe what he saw to the Court, but was so overcome with horror at the recollection that he almost broke down and had to take a seat before lie could go on with his evidence. There was a large pool of blood on the floor of the kitchen, and the walls of this room, and the laundry were sploshed with blood all round to a height of nearly 3ft. As for the injuries inflicted on Mrs. Haughton and her boy I had better quote the medical evidence submitted at the trial.

100 Stitchea in Boy's Face. Dr. Robertson told the Court that the woman was suffering from concussion and from severe cuts on the lips and tongue. Both cheeks, were badly lacerated, both eye* were black and closed, and her face was swollen to twice its normal siae. Also there were bruises all over her body, and in the doctor's opinion she will suffer from shock for months to come. As to the little boy, he also was suffering from concussion, and there was a deep cut running down from' the eye to the cornei of the mouth which exposed the cheek bone. There were other cuts on the face and chin, and inside his mouth the fiesh was, torn from his teeth evidently by a violent kick. About 100 stitches were put into the child's face, and the opinion of the doctors is that he will be disfigured for life. While Constable Emmett was collecting information inside Constable Wall was giving his attention to the man whom Jarman had "bailed up" in the garden. This man was arrested at once, and was asked to account for thfe blood upon his boots and clothes. He told a story about a man whom he had seen going out of the gate, making off with Mrs. Houghton's purse, and he said that the blood visible everywhere was the outcome of his fight with the marauder. "Could Not Remember.'* Mrs. Houghton, however, was able to give the Court convincing proofs of Bannerman's identity, and she al*o claimed as her own property the purse containing £2 which Bannerman had thrown under a tree in the garden, and a wristlet watch which he had taken from the house belonging to her son. Bannerman had little to say for himself. He admitted that he had been drinking and could not remember what had happened. He pleaded guilty. To-day Judge Markell sentenced Bannerman to five years' penal servitude for the assault on the child and three years for the attack on the mother, the sentences to be cumulative. So for eight years the people of Sydney will be safe from this ferocious ruffian. It may well be asked whether for such hideous crimes as these flogging might not act both as a powerful deterrent and a salutary penalty.