MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 112, 13 April 1936, Page 12

MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

STREET FIGHT. DEFENDANTS IN COURT. Charged with .fighting in a public place, Main Street, on April 11, William Patrick Collins, qnarryman, aged 36, of Pongaroa, and Hugh Stuart, labourer, aged 34, appeared before Mr W. Lowe Black, J.P., in the Magistrate’s Court at Palmerston North to-day. Collins pleaded not ' guilty and Stuart guilty. Senior-Sergeant Moil arty stated that at 8.30 p.m. on Saturday both defendants engaged in a street fight, with the result that Collins struck Stuart, driving him through a plateglass window valued at £l2 12s. Thomas Oliver Gilland, an eye-wit-ness of the occurrence, said he saw the two men wrestling on the footnath and waited to see what would happen. They, threw down their hats and Collins knocked the other man through a window. Collins: Did not the other man take up a threatening attitude towards me? Witness: He said “I will have a lick at you.” Collins: And I tried to pacify him Collins gave evidence that Stuart had become aggressive towards him in an hotel bar, saying, “I have not seen you before, but I will bave a lick at you.” Later, Stuart followed him down the street and sought a fight. Collins defended himself and struck one blow.

Cross-examined, defendant admitted that he had been fined £2 at Martinborough in 1930 for .street fighting, and £1 »t Napier in 1933. “Apparently street-fighting is an old game of yours,” commented the senior-sergeant to defendant. Collins: It- was until I learnt a lesson. but it is not now. / Mr Black: It does not seem to he any novelty to you Collins was fined 10s, and Stuart £l.