SEAMAN ACQUITTED

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 189, 7 May 1937, Page 13

SEAMAN ACQUITTED

Charge of Assaulting Woman EMOTIONAL SCENE IN COURT By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, May 6. A drinking party in which three men and three women were concerned last December led to one of the men, Frederick Kay Corbett, seaman, aged 19, being charged before Mr. Justice Callan iu the Supreme Court with gravely assaulting one of the women. The charge was of doing actual bodily harm to Elizabeth Beatrice Rushford, with alternative counts of assault so as to cause actual bodily harm and assault. The Crown prosecutor. Mr V. R. Meredith, represented the Crown, and Mr. J. F. W. Dickson conducted the defence. Mr. Meredith said Mrs. Rushford was a widow 55 years of age. On the afternoon of December 22, she and two other women and three men went to a room in an apartment house with some beer. Her story was that accused violently assaulted her, striking her with a beer bottle and trying to choke her. The injuries she received were serious. In a statement to the police accused said he discovered that his watch was missing and lost his -temper with the woman when she abused him. When he found she was seriously injured he telephoned an ambulance. Giving evidence on his own behalf accused said he saw Mrs. Rushford slip something into another woman's bag. Before the other woman went away he missed bis watch, and when he accused Mrs. Rushford of taking it she “came at him.” He struck her very lightly. He denied having hit the woman with a bottle. “She was very drunk,” he said. “We were all very drunk.” The jury returned after an hour to ask what would be the effect of a rider asking for the utmost leniency on the ground that accused had acted tin dec provocation. His Honour said that the word provocation had not been heard before in the case and the jury should consider very carefully before using it. Provocation was not a -legal defence Self-defence was one thing and provocation another. After two hours the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and the emotional scene which this started among women in the court had to be suppressed by orderlies. Accused was discharged.