CHAUFFEUR OPENS LETTER

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 November 1931, Page 12

CHAUFFEUR OPENS LETTER

WOMAN WITH A DOG WHIP LONDON, September 12. Extraordinary evidence was given at Lewes Police Court yesterday when Mrs. Irma Gillate, wife of a Sussex farmer, living at Beresford Manor, Plumpton, was summoned for an alleged assault upon Charles Alfred Wilson, her husband’s chauffeur. Mrs. Gillate denied the assault, and after deliberating in private the Bench dismissed the case.

Wilon said that he lived at Lumber Pits Cottage, Plumpton, and had been Mr. Gillate’s chauffeur for two and ahalf years. On September 6 Mrs. Gillate went to the cottage and asked to speak to him. He invited her inside, and then noticed she had a dbg whip in her hand.

She at once began abusing him, calling him a pig, a Swedish swine, and a brute, following this up by striking him across the neck with the whip. He struggled with her to obtain possession of the whip, and eventually got her outside. During the struggle, however, she bit him on the hand, drawing blood. Cross-examined by Mr. F. H. Carpenter (defending), Wilson agreed that Mrs. Gillate complained he had been spying upon her, and that, he said, was true. He also agreed that he had opened and read letters which Mrs. Gillate had given him to post. This was not done upon the instruction of his employer, but in the interests of his employer on his own initiative. Mr. Carpenter: Have you got any honour at all?—I used my own discretion.

Mr. Carpenter: And in using your own discretion you opened letters which a lady had given you to post. Wilson denied that the prosecution was brought about by Mr. Gillate, and said he (Wilson) had alleged that another Mr. Wilson had stolen a pair of gloves belonging to him, but it was not after this that Mrs. Gillate struck him. He denied that he struck Mrs. Gillate on the arm in order to get the whip from her. Mr. Carpenter urged that there was ample provocation for anything Mrs. Gillate had, done. It was a most dishonourable and dastardly thing for any person, particularly a servant, to open letters given him to post. It was quite clear there was a good deal more in this case than appeared on the surface, and he suggested that other proceedings might follow. “CAME AT ME LIKE A TIGER” Mrs. Gillate, giving evidence, said that she knew Wilson had been spying on her and had opened letters she had given him to post, so she prepared a trap letter, addressed to another Mr. Wilson, which she gave him to post. As the result of a communication she went to see the complainant Vi ilson at his cottage, and he told her he had opened the letter for spite, because the other Mr. Wilson had stolen his gloves. She then called him a dirty Swede. “He came at me like a tiger,” said Mrs Gillate, “struck me on the arms seized me by the arms, and shook me very much. It was after that that 1 struck him across the neck with the whip in order to get out of the room, because he looked such a villain. Mrs. Gillate denied that she bit Wilson, stating, that she was not wearing her dentures at the thne. Cross-examined by Mr. H. J. Vinall, for Wilson, Mrs. Gillate said that \\ ilson was still in her husband’s employment. She had not discussed the mattei with her husband, because Wilson had caused so much unhappiness between Dr. Percy Way, of Burgess Hill, said that when Mrs. Gillate went to him four days after the events described there were still marks of bruises on the upper part of her arm.