Peter Jones In Court; Fined £8 For Assault

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 16

Peter Jones In Court; Fined £8 For Assault

(New Zealand Press Association)

KAITAIA, February 13.

Peter Frederick Hilton Jones, a fisherman, of Awanui, who had pleaded not guilty of assaulting another fisherman. Kenneth Keller Rixon, on December 21 last, was fined £8 by Mr J. R. Herd, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court at Kaitaia today. i evidence Mr J Dotchin, a former Northland Rugby Union president, and Mr E. Griffin, a selector for the union, said they had known Jones since boyhood He had always shown the greatest restraint on the Rugby field, in spite of provocation which was sometimes vicious. Both agreed with Sergeant C. Rainey that they had not seen him on the particular occasion which led to the prosecution. The Magistrate said Jones had acknowledged that he

caused injury to Rixon so his defence must be that the amount of physical force he used was justified, and did not do more than was necessary to get him out of danger. He did not think it was suggested that any great physical harm was done, but it did seem to him that in the situation he had heard described Jones did not do more than was necessary, said the Magistrate. The Magistrate said be had heard with pleasure the evidence on Jones’s general attitude, and he believed what had been said of his be-, haviour in very many circumstances, and that he had kept his temper in hardfought Rugby matches, but for some reason, which, per-

haps, the Court did not fully appreciate, on this occasion he had done an injury to a man.