Hotel patrons slated

Press, 10 May 1979, Page 4

Hotel patrons slated

A young Auckland man who went to the aid of a girl whom he saw was being assaulted by a man outside the Black Horse Hotel in Lincoln Road last evening is disgusted with the apathy of hotel patrons in Christchurch.

The man, aged 22, a visitor to Christchurch, telephoned •'The Press’* after he had been beaten up by the girl’s assailant, and a second man, for his trouble. He said be was travelling on Lincoln Road in his car about 9 p.m. when he noticed the girl was in trouble. He stopped his car, rescued her, and escorted her to her car, but before be could return to his, the girl’s assailant had returned to the hotel and obtained •‘reinforcements.” The Auckland man was then beaten up for his trouble. When he went inside the hotel to ask for help, or at least for someone to telephone the police, he said he got no help from anyone.

“I had blood all over mv face and my glasses were broken, but they still wouldn’t help,” he said. After the police were called, and arrived, the Auckland man said that the hotel patrons refused to tell them who his assailants were — even though they had told him, before the

police arrived, that they knew their names. The visitor said he did not mind so much what had happened to him as the behaviour of the hotel patrons. “Their refusal to help was the worst part,” he said. The police are investigating.