BAILIFF EJECTED

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1931, Page 10

BAILIFF EJECTED

V LIVELY MELEE

"BECAME A TRESPASSER"

A bailiff with a mistaken idea as to his rights, a boarder taking a landlady's part, and two constables were the parties in a melee in and about a house in Ghuznco street recently. Tko story was told in tho Magistrate's Court to-day, when tho boarder, Rupert Frederick Torpy, was charged with various offences. Torpy, a mechanic, aged 51, for whom Mr. A. B. Sicvwright appeared, pleaded not guilty to assaulting Frederick Burnett, resisting Constable Kemp in the execution of his duty, and with wilfully breaking a pane of glass, valued at £1 ss, the property of May Beatrice Cutler. THE BAILIFF ARRIVES. Senior-Sergeant Edwards, in outlining the prosecution, said that Burnett, a bailiff, had gone to the house under instructions from a firm of solicitors to distraiu for rent. An altercation took place between tho defendant and the bailiff, and a constable was called in. The defendant refused to be pacified by the constable and resisted the constable when tho latter went to separate the pair. Another constable was then called. In the course of the struggle a window was broken. Tho occupier of the house, giving I evidence on behalf of the defendant, 1 said tha.t she had paid the bailiff the £5 which was owing for rent, and he then demanded 15s for his day's fee. ! Acting on advice, she refused to give him this, and the bailiff replied that he was not leaving tho • house until he got his 15s. Torpy, who was a boarder, and who was iv. tho kitchen at tho time, told Burnett to go, and the bailiff then turned and struck Torpy. This started the whole affair. UNLAWFUL DISTRESS. After hearing the evidence, Mr. E. Page, S.M., said it was clear that the warrant to distrain was for an excessive amount, and consequently was unlawful distress. The owner of the house had admitted that only £5 was owing, but the warrant for distress authorised the bailiff to distrain the chattels for £7 10s. "I think," Mr. Page said, "that the bailiff had no right to remain on those terms, demanding to stay there until ho was paid a fee of 15s to which he was not entitled. He became a trespasser and the occupants of the houso wero lawfully entitled to ask him to leave, or, failing that, to put him out. I think it was their efforts to do that that caused the trouble which forms the ground for the present charges." All tho charges were dismissed. !