Robbery victim admits assault

Press, 17 January 1979, Page 5

Robbery victim admits assault

PA Auckland A Howick man has told the Magistrate’s Court at Auckland that he tried to take a man who had stolen $250 from him to a police station — and that he had been arrested for his trouble. Bryce Patrick Groves, aged'2s, a design engineer, appeared before Mr D. I. N. Maclean, SJVI., on an assualt charge. Groves pleaded not guilty. Because police witi nesses involved in the

case were not available to appear at a defended hearing before Groves left the country to start work in Australia, the magistrate asked him for an explanation of the case. Groves told the court he had been attending a party when $250 was stolen from his coat. “When 1 went out to my car, I found a guy rifling through it, looking for some more money I had hidden there,” he said. “I pulled him out of the car and we started tussl-

ing, and then I found my money stuffed down the front of his trousers, so I tried to take him to the police station. “When I got there, they arrested me,” he said. The magistrate asked Groves if he had, in fact, hit the other man. “I had to, to restrain him and get him to the police station,” answered Groves. “He had taken my money." The Magistrate then dismissed the assault charge.