TRAVELLER’S OFFENCE

Grey River Argus, 6 February 1941, Page 8

TRAVELLER’S OFFENCE

Assaulted Mother PARENTS’ PLEA SUCCEEDS. WELLINGTON, February 4. “People don’t want us when we have got children. We are not supposed ’to live. We just exist,” said Godfrey William Wilson, a commercial traveller aged 40, who appeared in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, before Mr. J- L. Stout, S.M., charged with, assaulting his mother, Elizabeth Wilson. The Magistrate suggested that if trouble existed in. the house Wilson should change his residence. The defendant pleaded not guilty ..o the charge, but was convicted and ordered to comb un for sentence if called upon within 12 months. “If you can’t live there, you had better get out. and live somwehere else.” said the Magistrate. The defendant’s mother, Elizabeth Wilson, said that her son had half the house. On Saturday he had been to the races and came home in a taxi with three bottles of beer. He was drunk. He asked her to turn the radio down, and when she refused to do so he got her on the bed and tried to choke her, blackened her eye, and banged her on the chest. She would not like to sec him put away, said witness.

Sergeant Audley said that when he arrived at the house with Mr. Wilson, sen., the defendant had his mother by the throat, and was trying to knock her head against the wall. Wilson said his mother tried to make trouble with his wife. The defendant’s wife, whom she called, said that the complainant deliberately turned the radio up to annoy Wilson.

“I was brought up amongst drunkenness, and I have still got to put up with it,” said the defendant. “These people spend all their time drinking. They are crazy half the time, and when they have drink they are mad. They are not safe, and they are a danger to us.” Wilson alleged that the injuries the complainant received had come about when she tried Io force her way into his room. “Had that woman got in she would have killed somebody,” he said. “If it were not that the parents

have asked that you should not go to gaol, that is where you would go,” said the Magistrate, when imposing sentence upon Wilson.