Three guilty of assault

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 23

Three guilty of assault

Three men were found guilty by a jury in the District Court yesterday, of an assault on a younger man, at the victim’s home at Taylor’s Mistake, on the evening of May 20. They were sentenced to three months periodic detention. The defendants were Michael John Maunsell, aged 21, unemployed (Mr K. N. Hampton), Anthony Eamon Smith, aged 19, unemployed (Messrs G. R. Lascelles and R. a. Peters) and Douglas Malcolm Woods, aged 20, a beneficiary (Mr J. s. Halls). The three defendants had faced trial on a joint charge of assaulting Jason Cumming McDonald, aged 17, with intent to injure him. However, the jury found them guilty of the lesser offence of assault. Judge Fraser, imposing periodic detention terms on each defendant, said no permanent injury was caused to Mr McDonald, but he suffered some harm, required treatment and was off work for a period. The defendants had been acquitted of the more serious offence, and had no relevant convictions. Prison sentences were not required. However, there were serious aspects of the offence, the Judge said. The three had been affected to some degree by liquor, they went with another man to Mr McDonald’s home and the four, together, attacked him, causing him some harm. Evidence in the trial, which began on Wednesday, had been that the defendants and a fourth man had driven to Mr McDonald’s home, and there raised the matter of his spreading accusations about their stealing wet suits from his place. He was told they were

going to pay him back for his having hit Maunsell previously. Maunsell then punched Mr McDonald, who staggered from the blow and then hit Maunsell.

All three defendants, and another man with them, then began hitting Mr McDonald. He fell to the ground, and all four began kicking him.

The assault lasted three or four minutes. No defence evidence was heard.

Mr Hampton said in his final address that the evidence did not disclose any intention by Maunsell to cause injury to Mr McDonald. “A simple assault it may be, but an assault with intent to injure no,” he said. Mr Hampton said the evidence did not prove that Maunsell played any part in what occurred, after an initial involvement when Mr McDonald answered the door.

Mr Halls, for Woods, said he invited jurors to find that Woods assaulted Mr McDonald. He had “said as much in his statement.”

However, Woods was not guilty of assault with intent to injure, Mr Halls said. He contended that the evidence showed that the only time Woods could have been involved in an assault was when he hit Mr McDonald in response to seeing Mr McDonald strike Maunsell. Mr Lascelles said it was surprising, in view of the medical evidence of Mr McDonald’s injuries, that a charge as serious as assault with intent to injure had been laid.

He submitted that the evidence did not establish to the required standard that Smith was involved in the way the Crown had alleged. Mr T. J. Allan appeared for the Crown at the trial.