UNCLE CHARGED WITH SEVERELY THRASHING CHILD

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22822, 17 December 1948, Page 6

UNCLE CHARGED WITH SEVERELY THRASHING CHILD

(P.A.) WIIANGAREI, Dec. 16. "Never in my life have I seen anything like it. His body was simply black The little fellow could barely walk ” In these words Constable Muir in the Kawakawa Magistrate's Court described his reactions on inspecting the back of a 12-year-old boy whose uncle, Niko Waiomio, farmer, of Pokopu, had given him two beatings. Waiomio first beat his nephew with a razor strop after the lad had spent some hours searching for cows. Two days later the milking shed switch failed and, angered by the fact that he had slipped on an injured weak leg ns he had come into the shed, he again thrashed the boy first with a walking stick then with a thin stick which broke and. finally, with his belt Waiomio told the magistrate that he had lost his temper and when he came to his senses was sorry. Fie had lost an arm and had got shrapnel wounds in the forehead, chest and a leg during tho war.

The magistrate admitted the accused to 12 months’ probation, saying that if he had been fit and well he would have been sent to gaol.