YOUNG MEN ASSAULT CONSTABLE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21090, 15 February 1934, Page 5

YOUNG MEN ASSAULT CONSTABLE

❖ MAGISTRATES COMMENT ii'Ri-;ss Avicu'iius' im.ranv.) JJUNEDIN, February 11 "Deliberate and persistent assault," was how the magistrate, Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M.. characterised an oflence which led to the appearance in the Magistrate's Court to-day of three young men charged on remand with 'assaulting Constable Cromic in the execution of his duty. The accused were Thomas Joseph Daly, Arthur Francis Kean, and Douglas Gordon Panncll. Daly and Kean were also charged with using obscene language. The charges, to which the accused pleaded guilty, related to happenings at St. Kiida beach last Saturday afternoon, wh.cn accused, after using bad language, assaulted the constable. The magistrate said that it had been urged that the men were under the influence of liquor, but offences were frequently committed under the influence of liquor. The place where two of the men had used obscene language of an ugly nature was a bathing shed on the beach. The constable very properly checked them for using (ho language, and then these young men, knowing that he was a constable, had committed a "deliberate and persistent assault," in the course of which the constable was considerably injured. In cases of assault on a constable the public interest had to be safeguarded. On the charge o£ using obscene language Daly and Kean were each lined £2, in default seven days' imprisonment, and on the charge of assault each of the accused was sentenced to t4 days' imprisonment with hard labour.