ASSAULT ON MOTHER

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 111, 4 February 1941, Page 3

ASSAULT ON MOTHER

Married Man Before Court A story of trouble between a man, his wife, and their four children, and the man's parents, with whom they shared a house, was told yesterday before Mr. Stout, S.M., in the .Magistrates’ ■ Court, Wellington, when Godfrey 'William ’Wilson, commercial traveller, aged -10, appeared on a charge of assaulating his mother, Elizabeth Wilson, aged about 60 years. Accused, who pleaded nor. guilty, conducted his own defence. Considerably bruised about, the face, Elizabeth Wilson said she was the mother of accused, to whom she let half her house. On Saturday, she said, accused came home from the trots drunk. If he was able to go to race meetings, she asked him. why was he not able to pay his rent? When he asked her to put off the radio she refused. Accused later tried to choke her and punched her on rhe cheek. She did not want him sent to jail because of his children. How he entered the Wilsons' house and saw accused holding his mother by the throat, nnd trying to hit her head against the passage wall was described by Sergeant. R. Audley. Accused was not drunk enough to be charged with drunkenness. The wife of accused said her motherin law was always trying to make trouble, accusing her of carrying on with other men and with stealing things in the house. Her husband's mother had deliberately turned up the radio. She admitted there had been a struggle. Taking the witness stand, accused blamed his parents' drunkenness for his action. “'When they have drink,” he said, "they are mad." Within recent months he had been beset by worries. A son in hospital had had three serious operations and a further son had been born. When his mother was drunk she was a "dangerous woman.” and he had known her to chase one of his soiia up the passage, throwing hangers at him. He had often complained to the police about the behaviour of his parents, but when they invited him to write out a charge against them, it was more than he could do. They were, after all. his parents. He had tried to get away from this environment. to get a Government house for his wife and children, hut after nine months’ waiting his application was still under consideration by the authorities. Ho was two weeks behind in bis rent.

"If it were not that the parents have asked that you should not go to jail, that is whore you would go.” said Mr. Stout in convicting accused mid ordering him to come u)' for sentence if called upon within the next 12 months. Senior-Sergeant G. J. Paine prosecuted.