MAN “BEAT UP”

Grey River Argus, 22 May 1941, Page 8

MAN “BEAT UP”

AFTER A DANCE. FARM HANDS SENTENCED. NEW PLYMOUTH, May 21. Mr W. H. Woodward, S.M., in the Waitara Police Court to-day sentenced William Lake, a farm hand, of Awakino, and Albie Rowan, a farm hand, of Mahoenui, to two months’ imprisonment on a charge of assaulting William Theodore Stanton at Awakino.

Rua Anderson, a shepherd, of Otorohanga, was also charged. He did not appear. A warrant for his apprehension has been issued. Constable C. Q. Powell said three men were concerned. They followed Stanton from a dance into his boarding house and forced their way into his room, where they beat him. They made a thorough job of it. There was blood all over the floor. Stanton was well behaved at the dance. Stanton, in evidence, said he could give no reason why the men attacked him.

The Magistrate said: “I find it almost incredible, in a country where life and limb is supposed to be safe, that drunken hooligans can pursue an unoffending man into his tern porary home, and into his room, and then beat him up. That is the sort of thing that happens in other countries. It happens in Germany, for instance. But it is not going to happen here.”