Two Years’ Prison For “Vicious, Cruel Assault”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29388, 15 December 1960, Page 19

Two Years’ Prison For “Vicious, Cruel Assault”

(New Zealand Press Association)

GISBORNE, December 14. With a broken arm and a cut and swollen face as a result of being caught by a young woman and a youth after indecently assaulting a five-year-old girl, a ship’s cook was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment when he appeared before Mr L. N. Ritchie, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court this afternoon. The accused, Michael Cecil Tripley, aged 33, second cook on the motor-vessel Kaitawa, admitted the indecent assault at Gisborne on December 13. “This is not the ordinary type of indecent assault,” said the police prosecutor (DetectiveSergeant B. H. Constable), “but a vicious and cruel assault by a drunken man who might have carried on with disastrous results had he not been detected.” The accused was one of a number of visitors to a house in. Gisborne on Tuesday night, said De-tective-Sergeant Constable. He and another man from the Kaitawa took beer and wine with them. About 10.30 p.m. the accused left the sitting-room. Shortly afterwards a woman visitor went to get her coat in the bedroom where the child was sleeping. She switched on the light and saw the accused sitting on the bed. The child was crouched at the head of the bed, weeping and hysterical. The child screamed when spoken to, anil .the accused tried to get out of the room. The woman called for help and tried to hold him, but he ran off. '■» Chase and Struggle She and the 15-year-old brother of the girl caught up with the accused on the road. A struggle ensued, in which the accused suffered a broken arm, cuts, and bruises. The accused was drunk at the time of the offence, said Detec-tive-Sergeant Constable, and said he could not remember committing the offence. The child was

admitted to the Cook Hospital for' observation, but her condition was reported to be satisfactory. This was a serious case of its kind and one of gross interference, said the Magistrate. “The child was cruelly manhandled,” he added. “Drunkenness can be no excuse. I wonder that the child did not scream. Possibly you took steps to stop her from crying out, or possibly she was so affected by terror she could not If you had continued in this offence and not been interrupted you might be standing here charged with murder. “The injuries you received were well-merited, and I am glad you are prepared to admit that.”