UNDUE HASTE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 11 August 1942, Page 4

UNDUE HASTE

POLICE ACTION CRITICISED REHEARING OF ASSAULT CASE | Hamilton, Aug. 7. A rehearing of a case in which Eric Godfrey Thomas Walkeden, cabinetmaker, Hamilton (Mr Strang), was on 31st July sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment for assaulting a boy. was granted by Mr S. L. Paterson, Stipendiary Magistrate, in Hamilton to-day. Defendant admitted the offence, but pleaded provocation, as he claimed the boy had interfered with his young daughter. He had consulted the police twice before thrashing the boy. The magistrate said that had all the facts been before him the penalty would have been different, but in that respect defendant was himself to blame in maintaining silence. Counsel contended that defendant’s action was understandable. He did not desire his wife and child to come to the Court The magistrate said it seemed to him that if defendant had received more sympathetic consideration when he called on the police he might not have felt impelled to take the law into his own hands. The boy might have been a menace to other little girls. Mr Paterson also criticised the police for arresting the man at 9 a.m. and bringing him before the Court at 10 a.m. There was no need for such undue haste. The man was not give a chance, he said, and he could have been summoned. Defendant was ordered to be detained until the rising of the Court.