CHARGE DISMISSED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 65, 18 March 1938, Page 11

CHARGE DISMISSED.

ALLEGED ASSAULT. WOMAN'S STORY DISBELIEVED. (From Our Correspondent.) ROTORUA, Thursday. A charge of assault brought in the Police Court before Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., tliis afternoon against Wiringi Hororiri was dismissed. A Maori woman, Feletia Morehu, said she had none to a property at Owhata, over which she claimed her father-in-law was caretaker, to pick some marrows when she had been approached b,v Wiringi. He disputed her right to be on tlic property and accused her of stealing apples from a tree on the land. Wiringi, she said, had knocked her down, kicked her. and pulled her hair, with the result that -she had to go to the Rotorua Hospital for treatment. The evidence of the medical superintendent of the hospital. Dr. Jama* Ritchie, was that, although the woman had slight bruises on her limb=, they were not serious and did not need dressing. Wiringi denied that he had struck the woman, but said she had fallen on a tree and a near-by fence as a result of pulling away From him when ho placed his hand on her shoulder. He said that previously he had warned the woman not to go on to the property owing to offensive language which she had used toward his children and that actually she had no right to enter the property. The magistrate said he was unable to believe the story told by the woman, as no corroborative evidence of the assault had been brought and the medical evidence did not disclose the injuries which might have been expected after such an a.ssault as she claimed she had undergone.