SENSATIONAL SUIT

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 108, 3 November 1926, Page 9

SENSATIONAL SUIT

ACTION AGAINST CONSTABLE

SEBIOTTS ALLEGATIONS,

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, This Day.

The ease of John William Lockett against Constable George Macartney, claiming £100 damages for alleged assault and £300 damages for alleged false imprisonment, was heard before Mr. Justice Sim and a common jury to-day. The facts as alleged by the plaintiff were unusual. He was arrested for drunkenness, but the charge was dismissed. It was, claimed that he was sober and that the arrest was made for unjustifiable proceedings. Mr. Hay, counsel for the plaintiff, stated that ,Locketf was married and had matrimonial troubles with his wife, who took separation order proceedings. . She! alleged that he was an habitual inebriate, to which Constable Macartney swore. Mrs. Lockett occupied a shop in South Dunedin, and Constable Macartney admitted that the money for this was supplied by the constable's.wife. It was suggested that it was in the constable's interests to keep Lockett- and his wife apart. On the night of the alleged drunkenness Lockett .went out with' a man named Davidson to see what his wife was doing, returning to his home by the last car. When walking to the house it is alleged that Constable Macartney struck him'on the face, sat astride him, handcuffed him, and took him to the Momington Station, near which was a motor-car with two constables, in which he was taken to the Central Station. A.number of witnesses on the tram by which plaintiff went home swore that. he was sober, and the drunkenness charge was dismissed by the Magistrate. The case is proceeding.