ASSAULT HELD PROVED

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27832, 3 December 1955, Page 10

ASSAULT HELD PROVED

PENALTY INCREASED ON APPEAL (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 2. “In my opinion, this appeal should never have been brought,” Mr Justice North told Desmond Noel Lavery, aged 24, a painter, in the Supreme Court today. He dismissed Lavery’s appeal against conviction on a charge of assault, and increased the penalty imposed in the Magistrate’s Court from seven to 14 days’ imprisonment. “It was a brutal assault, carried out in anger on a 49-year-old fellow employee who had his arms and hands employed in carrying a keg of beer,” his Honour said. “Lavery Knew perfectly well when he brought the appeal that he was guilty of assault.” Samuel Hindley Tilton, employed by Associated Bottlers, Ltd., Khyber Pass, told the Court that Lavery had assaulted him after an argument with another man over the amount of meat bought for the firm’s cats. The fivegallon beer keg he had been carrying contained what remained after the employees had had their regular two or three glasses for afternoon tea. The men usually drank what was left when they finished work. Mr M. Robinson appeared for Lavery, who said Tilton had abused him and injured him with the keg.