SUPREME COURT. CRIMINAL SESSIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 115, 17 May 1909, Page 8

SUPREME COURT. CRIMINAL SESSIONS.

ALLEGED ASSAULT WITH A BOTTLE. Robert Seeds, a middle-aged man, pleaded not guilty before Mr. Justice Chapman this morning to a charge of assaulting one John M'Kinnon on the 21st April with intent to do bodily harm, and with actually causing bodily harm. The prisoner was defended by Mr. • Toogood. Mr. James Perry Rice was foreman of the jury. John M'Kinnon, labourer, living at M'Kinnon's Boarding House, 48, Clydequay, said that he had a bit of an argument with the accused on the April. At half -past four p.m., on the 2lst April, the witness returned home and found a bottle half-full of beer in his room. It was not his, and he threw it downstairs. Witness asked the landlady if anybody had been in his room.' She said she didn't know. Witness said : "I suppose Seeds has been there," Without warning Seeds came out of an adjoining room and struck him on the eye, blacking it. They had a tussle, and Seeds said after : "I will do for you before the night is over." Witness went to Clyde-quay Station to see a constable. He had been drinking a little. The prisoner was fairly sober. Witness, on his return to the house, went into the kitchen and found the accused in a rowdy state. The landlady threatened to have hhn removed. Then the witness and the prisoner had a tussle, and they wrestled out jnto the scullery, where Seeds grasped a bottle and hit the witness four times over the head with it. He had hold of the witness by the throat with the other hand. Witness bled freely. The constable arrived then, and arrested the prisoner. A doctor came and attended to the witness, who had suffered, and was still suffering, with the wounds inflicted by the bottle. To Mi-. Toogood : Witness denied striking Seeds first after the casting of the half-empty beer bottle downstairs. Witness had called the accused "an Irish ," but that was after the accused had struck him. Dr. Poster, house surgeon at the UellingLon Hospital, said that M'Kinnon had four cuts about two incheslong, one pretty deep, on the side of the head when brought into the hospital on the 21st. Witness put in nine stitches. Blows from a bottle could have produced the injuries, which were not very serious. » To Mr. Toogood: The injuries were not likely to be permanent. The blood-stained bottle, unbroken, was then produced, and shown the jury. The witness added that M'Kinnon was not drunk. The wounds might have been caused by repeated knocks of the hoad against some other substanco than the bottle. Agnes M'Lean, boardinghouse keeper, Clyde-quay, described the incident of the bottle in the bedroom and the scuffle in the passage. Seeds said to them : "Are, you looking for trouble, M'Kinnon ; if you are, Bob's the man, who can give it you." Then afterwards a scuffle took place in the scullery, which she did not see, but subsequently she saw M'Kinnon covered with blood. The bottle produced was on a side table in the scullery. To Mr. Toogcod : She could not say who struck the first blow. Both men were under the influence of liquor M'Kinnon the worse. She knew that Seeds had not been in M'Kinnon's room. There was very bad language on both sides. There were blood marks on the tables after the struggle. She heard M'Kinnon say, "He struck me with the bottle." Constable Ml'Kelvie, Clyde-quay, described the scene after the disturbance. M'Kinnon, who was bleeding freely, accused Seeds of hitting him on the head with a bottle. The accused denied striking the man with a bottle, and said he had done the damage with his hands Later he said he had done the damage by bumping M'Kinnon against the door. There were no blood marks on the door. This concluded the case for the prosecution. This afternoon the accused went into the witness-box to give evidence on his own behalf. *He declared that in the scuffle M'Kinnon seized him and gave him 'great pain. The witness bumped his head on the door and on the bench. The blood got on the bottle from the bench. M'Kinnon used provocative language, and struck the first blow. He bore the marks on his left cheek. Constable M'Kelvie, recalled, stated that the prisoner had told him that the marks on him were caused by a fryingpan. Mr. Toogood then addressed the jury. Mr. Myers addressed the jury, and his Honour summed up. The jury retired, shortly after three o'clock. THE LAST CASE. The trial of Charles Buchanan on a charge of criminal assault took place this afternoon. Mr. Wilford appeared for the accused, a young man, who pleaded not guilty. This is the last case on the list. \ (Left Sitling.) '