A CASE COLLAPSES

NZ Truth, Issue 1018, 30 May 1925, Page 6

A CASE COLLAPSES

Hospital Patient's Charges A Happening at Hanmer. (From "Truth's" Christchurch Rep.) Arising from a complaint by a paralysis patient at the hospital at Hanmer, Ralph Horatio Loveday was before Mr. Justice Adams and a jury on a charge of indecent assault and one of common assault, but after a brief retirement the jury brought in,a verdict m favour of the accused. Loveday had Lawyer W. J. Hunter to defend him. 1 Mr. Donnelly, for the Crown, said that the accused was driving a horse and cart when he met a woman patient from the hospital. She asked him the way to a certain place, and the accused gave it, but some time later he told her to go down a road. She knew that was the wrong way, and accused attacked her and tried to drag her along ttie road. Evidence on those lines was given by the patient; and James Anderson, a 'bus driver, deposed to seeing a man attacking the woman. As the witness approached the other bolted, and the same evening Loveday asked him if there was anything doing about the woman m the road. A telegraph messenger gave similar evidence. Loveday, from the witness-box, gave an emphatic denial to having handled the woman roughly. She seemed stupid when he gave her the direction, and he might have laid his hand on her arm for a few seconds. He noticed his horse had wa-ndered, and ran. to catch it. Mr. Hunter reckoned a woman m her partially paralysed condition might easily imagine she had been assaulted. There was absolutely no evidence of an indecent assault, and there was not sufficient evidence to hold. up the charge of common assault.

As stated, the jury thought likewise, and Loveday was discharged. •