SUPREME COURT Six months gaol for two hotel assaults

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34012, 28 November 1975, Page 17

SUPREME COURT Six months gaol for two hotel assaults

A man. who is serving a sentence of imprisonment I'm assaulting his wife with an axe. was gaoled for six months by .Mr Justice Roper in the Supreme Court yesi terclay on two charges of assaulting men with beer glasses in hotels. The man. Sureya Deo Pil- ; lay, aged 36, an unemployed I Fijian Indian, pleaded guilty ! during the course of his trial jto charges of assaulting Daniel Hublal and Robin Sujshil Rao with intent to injure on July 17. Mr G. M. Brodie, for the i prisoner said that Pillay was

run a very sorrowful and re-1 . morseful state. The offences were the result of the dete- ’ notation of his marriage and ’ private life. At present he ywas serving six weeks imli prisomnent on a charge of ‘assaulting his wife. . The offences arose from Jan incident at a party somei •■two weeks before. Pillay had gone drinking to drown his : sorrows. A religious arguument arose at the party and f Pillay was assaulted and .quite seriously injured. I His Honour: But it I appears that he started the -trouble. Mr Brodie said Pillay had been attacked by a group of ;! persons and had suffered T concussion and other in-

juries. The police investigated the incident but took the view that it was a free fight and that Pillay was as much to blame as anyone else. An air traffic control officer -who was at the party, and who was not drunk, took the view that excessive force had been i used on Pillay. Mr Rao was I involved in the assault on Pillay at the party. Mr Hubilal denied that he was at the party but. there wa> evi-

dence that he was present. Through his solicitors Pillay had made an attempt to lay private charges against i the two men whom he assaulted. By chance encounters on the same day he ran into Mr Rao in Warners Hotel and Mr Hublal in the Sandridge Hotel. Glassware was used in both assaults but the victims suffered only lacerations.

Pillay accepted that his marriage was finished. He did not want to return to' .Fiji because of his affection I for his children. The probation officer said that Pillay’s ;wife had told him that Pillay |was a poor provider and had inot had a steady job, but 'that was not shown bv his I work record. Mr Brodie'said. His Honour said that he had to regard both assaults ias serious. They occurred on Ithe same day at different hotels and both men were attacked with a beer glass and required treatment for their injuries. Pillay had been treated with considerable leniency Iby the Magistrate who had isentenced him to six weeks i imprisonment on the assault on his wife when an axe was involved. In a matter of days Pillay had then assaulted these two men apparently because he believed that he could not get justice in any other way. “I accept that you suffered fairly severe injuries earlier but there is some doubt as to whether one of the men whom you assaulted had anything to do with the incident at the I party,” his Honour said. He had a good deal of j sympathy for Pillay because lof the situation leading to the assaults and the failure of his marriage, said his Honour, but at the same time he had been treated leniently by the Magistrate.