STRUGGLE STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1937, Page 8

STRUGGLE STORY.

DENIAL BY MATRON. ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS. DEFENDANTS WIN CASE. An incident at a. nursing home was described at Brentford County Court, England. Mrs. Florence Fitzgerald sued Mrs. Ellis, matron of the Middlesex Comity Council's Twickenham Nursing Home, and her daughters, Yvonne an<l Dorecn, for damages for forcible imprisonment and assault. She also claimed a week's wages in lieu ot notice. Judgment was given for the defendants. It was stated that a previous claim for another week's wages had been settled in the same Court Home time ago. -Mrs. Fitzgemld said that Mrs. Ellis employed her as a weekly maid,- and after two days oflered her 4/t> and asked her to go. Her wages were 1 .">/■ When she refused the money, i-die said. Mrs. Ellis pulled her into the kitchen by the nose. The daughters locked the doors, and all three set about her. dragging off her clothes and badlv bruising her. lhen they left her locked in. liater she was released and o:.Tered ti/ti. I felt it my duty to bring this action to protect servant girls from places like this," Mrs. Fitzgerald told Judge Drucquer. "\ou can give the damages to any charity you like." She alleged that the County Council had had Mrs. Ellis under observation for a long time, and that the police had told her the house was a bad one. Mrs. Ellis, giving evidence, said that the police told her'they had never heard of Mrs. Fitzgerald. She said that Mrs. Fitzgerald had created a scene, but there had been no struggle. She was offered (i/ti. and later a week's money for the week she had worked was paid into Court. I he daughters nave similar evidence. Judge Druojuer, giving judgment, said he did not believe Mrs. Fitzgerald's story. If it were true, lie added, the other women should have been committed to a lunatic asylum instead of being brought into a Court.