GAOL FOR ASSAULT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 136, 10 June 1940, Page 11

GAOL FOR ASSAULT

WOMAN HIT ON HEAD

"OUT OF INFATUATION"

Hearing a woman screaming in a doorway in Farish Street at about 11.40 p.m. last Wednesday, a police constable found Charles Henry Merrick, a seaman, aged 27, grasping a woman by the'throat, according to statements made by the police when Merrick appeared before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today and pleaded guilty to a charge of assault.

The woman, said Sub-Inspector L. R., Capp, • prosecuting, complained to the constable that the accused had also struck her on the head with a beer bottle. There was a smashed bottle of beer lying on the footpath close by. The accused was arrested, and the woman taken to hospital. It ap-j peared that the woman, who was married, had been to the pictures that evening, and had gone to a cafe to have supper. A few minutes later the accused, with another man, came into the restaurant, noticed her there, having previously known her,, and spoke to her. She told him to go away, but after she went out he followed her and the assault occurred. Mr. R. Hardie Boys, who appeared for Merrick. said that the woman, who was married, had been associated with the accused since the middle of last.year, and counsel had in his possession her letters written' to Merrick, and telegrams right up -to date. Counsel Said he was fortified in his submissions by the letters, and he could inform the Court that there was a'most • affectionate association between Merrick and the woman, and also an arrangement to marry. Merrick, said counsel, was absolutely infatuated, but recently he became aware that she was not free to marry him because her divorce had not been completed. The woman began to evidence a change of attitude towards Merrick, which upset him considerably. On the day in question she sent him a telegram saying that she was working and could not meet him, but he had reason to, believe that she was not working and that she was only toying with him. He was madly infatuated, and made it his business to find out where she was. Finally he located her, and when she refused to allow him to accompany her he arrived at the conviction that she was going to meet somebody else. "On a sudden impulse he could not account for," said counsel, "he took the bottle and hit her quite lightly on the head —it did not break—and then dropped the bottle on the floor. The extraordinary thing was that he did this out of his infatuation and his jealousy, and, of course, at once repented of it. The girl screamed. Immediately he clapped his hand over her mouth —that was the choking attitude." f The Magistrate imposed a sentence of fourteen days' imprisonment.