Assault charge denied

Press, 26 February 1983, Page 7

Assault charge denied

A young man lay on the ground crying out while a Timaru fisherman hit, kicked, and threatened to kill him, the District Court was told .during a depositions hearing yesterday. The Timaru man, Raymond Francis Palmer, aged 24, has denied a charge of assaulting Christopher Ronald Ford, and one of threatening to kill him, both of which arose from the incident. After the depositions had been taken, Mr L. M. Hooker and Miss J. Taylor, Justices of the Peace, committed the. defendant for trial. He was remanded on bail until March 11. The complainant said that he had been approached by the defendant on an Akaroa street late on December 16. The two men entered a park

and, at the suggestion of the defendant, the complainant took a drink from the defendant’s bottle of beer. The defendant then struck him, knocking him to the ground, and proceeded to kick and hit him, the complainant said. “I think I passed out,” he said. Constable G. V. Williamson, of Akaroa, said that he saw the complainant soon after the alleged assault. The complainant had injuries to his mouth and an arm, and his face and head were swollen to such an extent that they were out of shape, he said. Gabrielle Duchesne Jeune Swan told the Court that she had been sitting with a friend near the park on the same evening when she heard a man saying “please don’t hit me,” and crying. When the witness and her companion approached the scene of the altercation, she saw the defendant standing over the complainant, hitting and kicking him. The defendant then told

the complainant “if you tell anybody about this, I’m going to come back and kill you,” the witness said. When the defendant left, the witness and her-companion went to the complainant and found him in a semi-conscious state and “quite a mess.” In a statement read to the Court, the defendant said that he had thought that when the complainant raised the beer bottle to his mouth, he was going to strike him. Because of this, the defendant struck the, complainant, he said. The complainant then got up, and the defendant struck him again before leaving, he said. The defendant denied kicking the complainant ■or threatening to kill him. Making his submissions, the defence counsel, Mr E. Bedo, said that there was no case to answer on the charge of threatening to kill because the complainant had' not heard any such threat. Sergeant J. E. Dwyer, submitted, however, that there was sufficient evidence to support both charges.