ASSAULTING A CONSTABLE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 13, 15 July 1918, Page 8

ASSAULTING A CONSTABLE

Mr. F. V. Frazer, S.M., does not take a lenient view of charges arising out of persons stupidly interfering . with 1 the police in the execution of their duty, as evidenced by his remarks to a young man named Johannes Antoneus , Wilhelmus 'Jansen, who was brought before him this morning charged with assaulting Constable Robert Anderson. The latter gave evidence that he was arresting a woman for drunkenness in the city, when Jansen came up behind, and attacked him. He handed his first charge over to another constable, and, after a violent struggle, handcuffed Jansen, and he and the woman who was the cause of the chivalrous but decidedly unwise attack were escorted to the police station together. "I do not know what has been the practice in the past.in Wellington," said Mr. Frazer, "but I have a strong objection to police constables being interfered with while doing their duty. There was no justification for this assault, even,if Jansen was a friend of the woman who was being, arrested. If this sort of thing is allowed to go on as a general thing it may lead to a riot whenever objection is taken to an arrest. The only thing to do is to hit it hard. You are ientenced to a month's imprisonment." ..

Tho annual meeting of the St. John Ambulanco Association, at which special displays of war. ambulanco work will bo given by members of the -divisions and brigades and Boy Scouts, will be held in *ha Concert Chamber to-morrow evening,