TAXI-DRIVER HIT OVER HEAD WITH BOTTLE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 21 March 1938, Page 6

TAXI-DRIVER HIT OVER HEAD WITH BOTTLE.

MIDNIGHT AUCKLAND ASSAULT j (By Telegraph —Press Association). AUCKLAND, Last Night. With head injuries and in a semiconscious condition a taxi-driver staggered into his Upper Queen street depot at an early hour on Saturday morning and told an incoherent s(ory of having been viciously struck on the back of the head with a bottle by a passenger he had driven to Western Springs road. The victim, Charles James, aged 39, was still suffering from painful injuries and shock to-day. James told the police how he had been commissioned by a man at the corner of Wellesley street and Queen street about midnight to drive to Western Springs road. Upon arriving at the destinuation, the passenger, a thick-set man, instructed the driver to stop near the corner. Just as James was switching on the light inside the car, the man suddenly smashed a bottle across the back of his head. The blow was of such force that the bottle was smashed into many pieces, and he said he must have been uncon: scious for some time, because when he realised he had been attacked the passenger had disappeared. The assailant evidently made off immediately, as the taxi-driver had not been robbed.

Detectives carried out investigations immediately, but no arrest lias been made.