“BEHAVED LIKE A BLACKGUARD”

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 28

“BEHAVED LIKE A BLACKGUARD”

TAXI-DRIVER CONVICTED OF ASSAULT Dominion Special Service. Auckland, November 22. In the Magistrate's Court, James Tait, a taxi-driver, was charged with assaulting Stanley Austin Carr, a prominent Auckland business man, formerly president of the Auckland Returned Soldiers’ Association, and Captain J. A. Humphreys DavieI}, 1 }, at Clcve don. on Sunday, September 9. Captain Humphreys Davies, in evidence, said he was driving along Carr's private drit . toward the house when he saw a man and a woman, the former with a gun. walking along behind a hedge. A car was drawn up close to the house. He then heard barking, and saw a dog chasing some sheep belonging to himself and Carr Counsel for accused: A Pomeranian dog about eighteen inches long and eight inches high. Witness said he jumped out of the car and walked down a gully toward the dog, encountering another man and a woman, who said the dog was not chasing sheep but was merely playing with them. “I asked them If they knew they were on private property.” continued witness, “and Tait told me he could go where he liked, as he was a Government Inspector in the Forestry Department. The woman had a jar under her arm, so I asked Tait whether he had a hammer, as the track led to the beach where there were oyster beds.” Witness said he then returned to the drive, and was looking at the number of the car, when Tait came up behind him, saying : “Now I have got you alone. ’ Witness was then attacked: he succeeded In avoiding his assailant’s rather clumsy blows, so Tait said to the other man, who had come up in the meantime: “What have you done with that gun” Carr then came up in answer to witness’s cries, and Tait attacked them both with a hammer which he had taken from his overcoat pocket. The other man. whose name witness would not mention, as he was at present serving a long terra in gaol, stood by and refused to give any assistance. The struggle went, on at intervals for about twenty minutes, Tait threatening to “do them in” with the hammer and burn down the house. “Carr and I owe our lives to Mrs. Huniphrevs Davies,” ’concluded witness. “When Tait tried to follow us into the house she tried to restrain him, telling him we were both subject • severe heart attacks.”

Carr corroborated Captain Humphreys Davies’s story, adding that he thought Tait to be mad. “This Is a very , bad assault,” commented the Magistrate, Mr. Hunt, “T 1 man behaved like a blackguard and terrorised the household for the whole of Sunday afternoon." Tait was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment for assault against Captain Humphreys Davies. His protest was silenced by Mr. Hunt, who said he wished he could impose a heavier penalty. On the carge of assaulting Carr, Tait was fined £lO, in default a month’s imprisonment. The costs amounted to £7 10s.