ASSAULT CHARGE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 73, 20 December 1937, Page 10

ASSAULT CHARGE

Incident Outside Shop THREE MEN FINED - By Telegraph—Press Association. VVailii, December 18. Following a complaint, the police instituted proceedings against Albert Osborne, Reginald Thomas Burke, and Charles Peter Bennio for unprovoked assault on a prominent business man, Wilfrid Osmond Parr. The case was heard before Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M., at the Waihi court.

It was alleged that the accused men, slightly under the influence of drink, paraded Main Street on a Saturday afternoon and took strong exception to Parr painting his own shop. Parr said they abused him roundly in vile language, repeatedly alleging he was scabbing on painters. During the afternoon they stopped opposite his shop four or five times, using abusive language. Parr stated he took no notice but went on with the painting. On the fifth occasion Osborne, without warning and while Parr was in a stooping position, struck Parr, who straightened up, swung round, and knocked the man down. Osborne returned to attack and was knocked down a second time. Later Bennie and Burke joined in the fray. Hearing the police were coming the men ran away. Summing up, Mr. Levien said it was a perfectly unprovoked assault in each case. The complainant was painting his own shop—doing his own work. The extreme pleasure that was derived from doing something with one’s own hands cannot be 'denied one, and he did not think the time had arrived when a man should be called opprobrious names for .doing such work. Why should he be deprived from doing anything he wished with his own hands? “There are multitudinous avenues open to him for doing pleasurable work, and I trust that man will never be denied that pleasure, whether it be economic or uneconomic to do it,” said the magistrate. Osborne was fined 50/- and Burke and Bennie 40/- each.