FIGHT IN ALLEYWAY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 63, 8 December 1936, Page 18

FIGHT IN ALLEYWAY

Two Young Men Arrested

SEQUEL IN COURT A scuffle between two young men in a taxicab alleway in Courtenay I’lace on Saturday had its sequel in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when Eric William Gaskin, taxi-driver, aged 21, and Mathos Baris, waiter, aged 23, faced charges of fighting in a public place. Gaskin pleaded not guilty and Baris guilty. Suu-Inspector J. Dempsey prosecuted, and Mr. lan Macarthur appeared for Gaskin. Baris was unrepresented. Richard .George Withington, of the Prisons Department, said that at about 4.40 p.m. on Saturday he noticed a crowd outside the alleyway leading to the Grey Cabs garage in Courtenay Place. Witness went over and found two young men fighting, and was about to separate them when a constable appeared. Witness assisted the constable to take the men to the Taranaki Street Police Station. He did not see the beginning of the fight. Gaskin was bleeding profusely about the face. William Franklin Brown, taxi-driver, said Gaskin was holding Baris in a headlock when he arrived on the scene. Gaskin told Brown that Baris hit him over the head with a shovel. Gaskin’s face ■was covered in blood from his right ear and a gash on his right forehead. The police arrived in a minute or two, but prior to their arrival Baris picked up a flower pot and was going to throw it at Gaskin, but the latter knocked it from Baris’s hand. Constable J. A. Hall said he separated the men and took them to the station, where they made statements, which were read to the court. In evidence Gaskin said he only fought in self-defence. There had been previous feeling between himself and Baris, and on finding Baris using the cab company’s hose defendant told him to stop. Baris went in the back door of the nearby milkbar where he was employed, but a few seconds later rushed out at defendant, abusing him. “He struck me with a fireshovel, and I wasn't going to stand there like a mug and let him go for me,” added defendant, “so I caught hold of him and threw him with a headlock. We got to our feet again and engaged in blows. Soon afterward the police arrived. Actually I only fought in self-defence.” Counsel for defence submitted that the cuts on Gaskin’s right ear and forehead substantiated his story, and further the statement made to the police by Baris was, in general, in conformity with Gaskin’s account of the incident. ‘The charge against Gaskin will be dismissed, although I think to some extent that he was looking for it,” said Mr. Raymond Ferner, S.M. Baris was convicted and fined £l, with 8 witnesses’ expenses.