UNDER A WOMAN’S BED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 15 October 1925, Page 5

UNDER A WOMAN’S BED.

MAN ESCAPES SCOT FREE. AMAZING LEGAL ANOMALY. ' (by telegraph—press association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Oct. 14. Any man who lies under a bed in someone else’s house for an hour after sunset can do so with impunity. There is no law under which he can be. prosecuted, This amazing anomaly was disclosed in the hearing of a. remarkable ease in the Magistrate’s Court to-day before Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M. Dougls Alexander Davison, aged 25, was charged with attempted theft from the dwelling of Evangeline Litchfield on September 21. Davison had) been found in the twilight hour under Mrs Litchfield’s bed. In a statement he made to the police, Davison said that he went into a house in Derby Street. The door was open. He did not know whose house it was. He had "been in the place only a couple of minutes when he heard footsteps,, and he.crawled under a bed. Then he heard footsteps in the room, and he crawled out again, and ran out of the house. He could give no reason for his going into the house.

The Magistrate said that he did not think there was sufficient evidence of an attempt to steal. The fact that a man was found under a woman’s bed at night could not be, taken as evidence that he was there to steal. Davison should have been brought up on a; charge of being a rogue and a vagabond, in that he was found in a residence at night without lawful excuse.

Chief Detective Gibson said that such a charge; could not be brought, because the sun set at 7 minutes to 6 on that evening, and Mrs Litchfield said that Davison was at the house at 20 minutes to 7. For that charge to be brought Davison would have to be at the house later than an hour after sunset.

The Magistrate: There, is not sufficient evidence of an attempt to steal.

The Chief Detective: There is no protection for women at all.

The Magistrate: No, of course there is not.

The charge was dismissed