HALF-DRUNKEN HOODLUM

NZ Truth, Issue 1305, 18 December 1930, Page 9

HALF -DRUNKEN HOODLUM

SEAMAN DISCIPLINED BY MAGISTRATE

FOURTEEN DAYS

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Dunedin Rep.) Although only . 19, Leonard Francis Heller manages to obtain liquor and has earned from the police the unsavory description of a "semi-intoxicated hoodlum. THIS was the appellation applied to ■*■ him by Senior-sergeant Quartermain when Heller appeared m the Dunedin Police Court on a charge of assaulting John Moore. Mr. C. J. L.. White appeared for HeHer, who pleaded guilty. "With two others of his kidney," related the Senior-Sergeant, "Heller accosted a respectable young woman m High Street, using many offensive terms to her. She went into a shop and requested the intervention of the proprietor, a man named Walker. When Mr. Walker spoke to Heller, the latter turned on him and abused him, using filthy language, and threatening to assault him. "Later," continued the prosecutor, "Heller met a man named Cooper, unknown to him, and requested a cigarette. Cooper gave him two, and a few yards further on, Heller accosted John Moore with another request for cigar r ettes. Moore had none and said so, whereupon Heller hauled off and up-per-cut him." v It appears that Cooper then, intervened and was also assaulted by Heller, who followed him and •struck him a blow from behind, dazing him. Mr. White said Heller denied being a larrikin. He was married and had one child and was. a seaman temporarily out of work, though he had a chance of signing on a ship sailing the next day. "He says he fell m with a friend who had some money and they spent j the afternoon drinking beer," added counsel. "They then met another man who had a bottle of gin, which they demolished, and this made Heller, unaccustomed to 'hard' liquor, drunk. He cannot remember anything of the occurrence." Counsel pleaded for leniency and said it was significant that Heller was not charged with annoying the young woman. Senior-sergt. Quartermain: We were specially asked not to *make ' that charge, but we can easily apply for an adjournment and lay it. Mr. White added that though an-, other member of his family had been m trouble with the police, Heller himself had not previously been charged. Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M., said the •■■ourt must view charges of assault seriously. The police stated Heller ,vas a nuisance to respectable citizens, and he thought it proper to send | iim to gaol for. fourteen days.