COWSHED ASSAULT

Northern Advocate, 23 October 1935, Page 8

COWSHED ASSAULT

FARMER STRUCK WITH SHOVEL EMPLOYEE FOUND GUILTY, MERCY RECOMMENDED REMANDED FOR SENTENCE / ISpecial to “Northern Advocate.”} AUCKLAND, This Day. Charles Augustus Milich, farm hand, pleaded not guilty before Mr. Justice Fair and a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday to a charge of having assaulted George Thorburn, his employer, a dairy farmer at Matakohe, on March 26. ' Mr Webb appeared, for Milich. Mr Hubble, who appeared for the Crown, said that Milich gave his employer notice ten days before the assault took place. On the morning of the assault some words passed between them, and when Thorburn saw Milich pick up a shovel in the cowshed he asked him what x he was going to do. Milich suddenly struck him on the head with the shovel, inflicting a severe injury to the top of the head. The blow resulted in a very serious fracture of the skull, and the dairy farmer had to be sent to the Auckland Hospital. A serious operation was performed and a large section of the skull removed.

Milich. became alarmed after having struck the farmer and be told the neighbours, saying that Thorburn had called him~ abusive names. If Thorburn had called him an abusive name there was no provocation that would be a defence to the charge of assault. Thorburn denied giving Milich any provocation. He had never had a fight in his life. Accused in his, evidence said: “I may say I am sorry the thing happened, but I was alone in a cowshed with. a bigger man threatening me with physical violence.”

Mir Webb said that the defence was that the accused was justified in doing what he did, because he was threatened by his employer. The jury, after a retirement of a quarter of ah hour, returned a verdict of guilty under provocation of assault so as to cause actual bodily harm, and added a strong recommendation to mercy. Milich was remanded for sentence.