CLAIM AGAINST CONSTABLE

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26123, 27 May 1950, Page 9

CLAIM AGAINST CONSTABLE

INCIDENT IN HOTEL BAR MAGISTRATE RESERVES DECISION (New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL, May 26. Decision was reserved by the Magistrate (Mr W. A. Harlow, S.M.) in the Invercargill Magistrate's Court to-day at the end of a two-day hearing in which John McFetrich sought general damages of £75 and special damages of £5 bs in a civil action against a police constable stationed at Winton, William George Wood. The damages claimed were for injuries suffered by McFetrich, when he was allegedly forcibly thrown out of the Winton Hotel by Wood on February 4. Evidence was given by two relieving barmen at the Winton Hotel on February' 4 when plaintiff’s case was continued to-day. David Roderick McKenzie said that Constable Wood just “heaved McFetrich out of the door of the private bar, and John Francis Gordon alleged that after Wood let McFetrich go he “shot through the door, struck a window ledge outside, and landed on his face.’’ Wood, in evidence, said he had been in the Police Force for 29 years and had been stationed at Winton for 14 years. Four times altogether he had asked McFetrich and a companion to leave the bar. He put his hand on McFetrich’s shoulder .turned him towards the door, and then McFetrich McFetrich’s shoulder, turned him tothrow McFetrich out. Allegations that some witnesses for the plaintiff were telling the truth only when it suited them was made by Wood when cross-examined by Mr L. F. Moller, who appeared for McFetrich. Asked further if apart from that, witnesses were simply lying, Wood said that they must be if they claimed he threw a 10-stone man 12 feet. When asked if the particular case was serious for him, Wood said that the department did not like that sort of thing. The case did not carry the possible loss of his position. It was certainly not as much in his interests to tell what was not true as much as it 'was for any other witness. Dr. Alfred Maxwell Bradfield said that he put 10 stitches in McFetrich’s upper lip. McFetrich was drunk when he arrived at the surgery and was still drunk an hour later.