ASSAULT CHARGE FAILS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 51, 23 November 1929, Page 9

ASSAULT CHARGE FAILS

DEAF AND DUMB PEOPLE IN COURT. Rather an unusual case came before the Magistrate’s Court yesterday in that the four persons concerned were practically deaf and dumb. The case was the outcome of an alleged assault by a man on a woman in the kitchen of her house on a recent Sunday morning. Chief Detective Lopdell stated to Mr. E. Page, S.M., that the four people concerned in the case —three men and a woman—were a little community amongst themselves because of the similar nature of their afflictions. Evidence for the police was to the effect that the accused had assaulted the woman in the presence of another man. For the accused Mr. W. E. Leicester said that his client had been merely skylarking with the woman. He had gone to school with her and was a friend of her husband’s, and all he had done was to tickle her. The woman and the other witnesses gave evidence by signs and by writing down bn paper. The Magistrate dismissed the case without calling on the defence, saying that he was not satisfied that the accused had any sinister object and that he did not think it a case where a conviction for assault should be recorded.