BRITISH FASCISTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 November 1934, Page 7

BRITISH FASCISTS

LEADERS’ ALLEGED ASSAULTS COMMITTED FOR TRIAL — [BY CABLE —PBESS ASSN. —OOPYBIGHT.J (Recd. November 16, 11 a.m.) .LONDON, November 15. Sir 0. Mosley and three Black Shirts, including William Joyce, Director of the Fascist propaganda, and Captain Budd, West Sussex District Officer, were committed for trial on charges of riotous assembly, arising from a Fascist meeting at Worthing on October 9. Yesterday an assault charge against Mosley, arising from the same affair, was dismissed. All pleaded not guilty. There were seventy witnesses, and the case occupied five days/ The prosecution alleged that Black Shirt's, under the leadership of the defendant, brutally atttacked the crowd, which hooted and cheered when they departed from the pavilion in which Sir O. Mosley addressed his supporters. • ' Sir 0. Mosley, giving evidence in the assault case, aroused a strong protest, when he said the prosecution was the result of political influence and false police evidence.

FURTHER- CHARGES. (Recd. November 16, 1 p.m.) LONDON, November 15. Nine Black Shirts were charged variously with assault, damage, inciting, and committing a breach of the peace at Fascist meetings at Plymouth. The prosecution alleges that the meeting on October 5, addressed by Sir O. Mosley, developed into a freefight; also that during an open-air meeting on October 11, the crowd heckled the speakers, who signalled to colleagues to attack. The victims allegedly included an octogenarian and a cripple. It is also alleged that the assailants were wearing metal body-protectors, and that their knuckles were bound with tape.