"VULGAR WOMAN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 5, 7 January 1938, Page 9

"VULGAR WOMAN."

ASSAULT AND DAMAGE

ORDERED TO PAY £175.

STRUCK AND BIT MAN. (Special.—By Air Stall.) LONDON, December 17. Damages of £175 were awarded at Lewes Asssizes against a 26-vear-old. girl farmer, described by the judge as "a vulgar foul-mouthed woman." The action -was T)rought by Mr. Charles Alan Matthews, a sales superintendent, of Dyke Road, Brighton, who sued Miss Patricia Mather, of Northover Farm, Ashurst, for assault and damage. Mr. C. J. T. Pensotti, for Mr. Matthews, said his car ran over a dog. He stopped, but the dog got up and walked about. Two men came up, one of whom said that his sister owned the dog, and Mr. Matthews gave him his card. "As he was about to drive away," said Mr. Pensotti, "Miss Mather appeared in riding costume and looking very savage. She said, 'You -swine,' and struck him on the nose." Ordered Out. At this point Mr. Justice Charles said sternly to Miss Mather and another woman sitting behind counsel: "You two ladies leave the Court at once. I will not have you giggling there." Mr. Pensotti said Miss Mather rained blows on Mr. Matthews in "a fiendish rage." "She clawed his neck, face, and one of his eyes, and then got him on the ground. Miss Mather got hold of his neck and tried to throttle him. Then she bit his neck and clawed his chest. "The two men came to the aid of Matthews and pulled the fiendish woman from him." When he got into bis car Miss Mather jumped on the running board and seized the steering wheel. Windscreen Smashed. While he was telephoning to the police Miss Mather got into his car and threw parts of vacuum cleaners on to the road and put her foot through the windscreen.

When a police officer arrived Miss Mather said: "He hurt my dog and I hurt him."

Mr. Matthews, describing the incident, said: "If it had l>een a man I should have retaliated in no uncertain fashion."

"It is a pity it was not a man," remarked the judge. "He would probably have got a hiding that would have done him good."

Summing up, Mr. Justice Charles said Miss Mather was "in a state where one would almost think she ought to be submitted to some mental expert to see whether a person so ill-balanced is fit to be out of a lunatic asylum."