EMPLOYEE ILL-TREATED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 5 February 1944, Page 2

EMPLOYEE ILL-TREATED

GAOL FOR ASSAULTS Hamilton, Feb. 4. Sentences of two years’ imprisonment with hard labour on a charge of assault so as to cause actual bodily harm relating to 27th September and one year s imprisonment with hard labour on a charge of assault on 10th June, the terms to be concurrent, were imposed by Mr Justice Blair in the Supreme Court, Hamilton, to-day on Joseph Cox, aged 35, sharemilker. Matamata, who was found guilty by a jury yesterday of assaults on an employee, Thomas Dawson Boric. Mr N S. Johnson for Cox, said that in view of the evidence and the verdict he could scarcely say anything m extenuation or mitigation of Cox s action, but he was a married man with four children and they would be homeless if Cox were sent to prison. His Honour said it looked as if the wife was implicated in the assaults. There were some appalling features about the affairs and they were very distressing indeed. The assault on 27th September apparently started early in the morning, when Boric was deprived of a meal and sent to town. There he bought some food with Cox’s money. The rest of the day he had been treated with studied brutality practically all day and the wife knew about this treatment. A witness, Diprose, saw Boric a week earlier and had noticed his emaciated condition, with lots of sores. The woman was not deserving of any consideration. “It is a lamentable business,” said his Honour, “and I cannot understand the mentality that influenced it. The man Boric was grossly ill-treated. He was made to wallow' in animal droppings, which all know are a source ar tetanus. He was a mass of open sores. Cox’s action really endangered Boric’s life, for he was in a low state of health and very serious results might have occurred. The wfrole thing is lamentable indeed. He is not deserving of mercy. The maximum penalty for this class of offence is three years’ hard labour. This was deliberate and studied assault and the culmination of a long series of assaults.”—P.A.