ASSAULT ALLEGED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 4 August 1926, Page 9

ASSAULT ALLEGED.

COMPLAINT BY AN ACCUSED. JUDGE REFUSES TO BELIEVE IT. (by TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.) PALMERSTON N., Aug. 4. At the Supreme Court, his Honour Mr Justice Reed, in summing up in a ease in which Hector Mark Perreau (18) was arraigned on three charges- of ■breaking, entering -and theft at Levin, and -alternatively to theft alone or receiving property knowing ,it to have keen stolen, referred to accused’s statement in the; witness- box that a, detective at the police -station, -at Welling struck him (the accused) with his fist, knocked him down, and then caught him by the throat to get a. statement from him. “I have not the slightest hesitation in -saying that this evidence is absolutely untrue,” said his Honour. “Such a thing is impossible- with any police officer unless- he is mad or drunk. Probably the accused has been reading some third degree story of America-, and had- given the fury the benefit of something that ho had read. Nothing had been -said by the accused about the knocking down incident when charged in- the lower court, and it wa-s strange that- the detective, when in the box, had not boon cross-examined on the- point. The- jury was entitled to believe this -story told by the accused, hut his Honour felt- it was right for him to say that such an incident was impossible in New Zealand. If the jury disbelieved the- accused on this matter it would help- it in coming to a decision on the other matters.”

ACCUSED FOUND GUILTY

PALMERSTON N., Aug. 4. In the Perreau case, the jury returned a verdict of guilty.of receiving goods stolen from the shops of Cameron Bros, and Clark Ltd., but not guilty on the other seven counts.. Prisoner was remanded for sentence.