Alleged Slander

NZ Truth, Issue 999, 17 January 1925, Page 3

Alleged Slander

A DARK MAN ASSAULTED,

When Charles Joujhin, a stalwart watersider, was asked to plead m answer to having assaulted Wilfred James Woods he said "guilty under provocation," and Magistrate Poynton, at Auckland, asked Sergeant Rowell to call his evidence. With that, the name of Wilfred James Wood echoed and re-echoed through the precincts of the Temple of Justice, and m response thereto. a short, sturdy, colored gent m a white suit stepped forward. He said he was Wilfred James Wood,, and he spoke quite fluent English, without accent, as he told his story- He said that he stayed at a boardinghouse m Pitt Street, and that on the morning of the previous day he was awakened from his slumbers by a loud smashing at his bedroom door. Immediately afterwards the accused burst into the room and assaulted him after pulling him from his bed. He indicated that he had pretty bad bruises on the mouth and face, and he produced a doctor's certificate to the effect that he had been attended for injuries received, which had cost him. half a guinea for the medico and five shillings for the medicine. If the accused said that he (complainant) called anyone a prostitute he was wrong. He never did anything of the sort.

The colored witness was cross-ex-amined by the accused as to his means of livelihood, but the- S.M. ruled that that was irrelevant, and asked Joujhin to keep to the question of provocation. "Did you not say that my girl was a prostitute?" asked the accused, with wild excitement glittering m his eyes. "No, I did not," was the replyWere you not qrdered out of the house for your behavior with some girls? The S.M.: That has nothing to do with your defence of provocation. Accused (to witness) : Have I not treated you as if you were nothing; as if you were not of this earth?— l have never spoken to you.

.Joujhin, on his own. behalf, said that he had been told that the complainant had insulted his girl. He said that he had been keeping company, with her for two years, and that at present she was m ill-health.. She had never m her life slept m the 'house he resided m, •'and," he said with marked fervor, "I believe her before I would believe anyone on this earth, and I have a right to." The S.M.: .To justify provocation you must show* that the act was done on the. spur of the moment. To nurse your resentment over night and thon commit an assault m the morning, does not constitute provocation.

Accused: I was working till ten o'clock on the previous night and. did not hear of the incident till the following: morning, and I went straight to Woods's bedroom there, and then. I asked him to mit on his pants and come and apologise to my girl, but he would not do so. Then he struck out at me and I then got into him.

.Joujhin thlen called the proprietor of the house and another boarder, both of whom deposed to haying" heard V?"pods speak the slander of Joujhin's young lady. . • .' The S.M. conceded that there might have been grounds for the provocation alleged by Joujhin, but then, he said, the accused could not take the law into his own hands as he had! done by breaking ' m the door of Woods's bedroom aud, assaulting him as he did. He fined Joujhin £2... (half the fine to go to the complainant) , plus costs, witnesses' expenses; doctor's fees, arid bost of medicine, m all £3 ss, m default seven days. , It was quite apparent that the accused found , it hard to control his wrath when he left the box. •