STABBING AFFRAY

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29713, 5 January 1962, Page 12

STABBING AFFRAY

Seaman For Sentence

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON. January 4. The police felt they should emphasise the feeling of revulsion the public held toward stabbing, said Sergeant K. Ford in the Magistrate’s Court, Wellington, today when asking for a deportation order against an Irish seaman convicted of stabbipg two seamen off the liner Rangitiki.

Bernard Joseph McCaffey, aged 21, able seaman, pleaded guilty to assaulting Jeffrey Frank Draper and James Bunting Jackson so as to cause actual bodily harm. The charges had been reduced from wounding with intent

Sergeant Ford said the attack occurred on December 27, after celebrations on overseas ships.

With two cabin mates. McCaffey had gone to visit acquaintances on the English Star. This was an orderly visit until McCaffey directed his attention to a female companion of another sailor. After an argument, the men were leaving the ship and Draper and Jackson spoke to McCaffey in an endeavour to keep him out of further trouble.

Neither had provoked McCaffey, but he drew a jackknife from his pocket and stabbed them both in the stomach.

Both men were rushed to hospital where emergency surgery saved both lives. The master of the vessel. Captain H. N. Lawson, said McCaffey had been with the ship three months and had proved himself to be a “thoroughly bad hat.” He had been logged once for attacking a seaman and be had made threats to others.

Mr R. D. Jamieson, S-M., remanded McCaffey a week for sentence.

He noted that the Rangitiki sails finally on January 9, but said the matter was too serious to be rushed because of Ibis.