VICIOUS ATTACK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24613, 22 May 1941, Page 6

VICIOUS ATTACK

MAN’S ROOM ENTERED OFFENDERS IMPRISONED (P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH. May 21. “ I find it almost incredible in a country where life and limb are supposed to be safe that drunken holligans can pursue an unoffending man into his temporary home and into his room and then beat him up. That is the sort of thing that happens in other countries —Germany, for instance —but it is not going to happen here.” This comment was made by Mr W. H. Woodward, S.M., in the Waitara Police Court to-day, when he sentenced William Lake and Albie Rowan, farm hands, to two months’ imprisonment on a charge of assaulting William Theodore Stanton at Awakino. Rua Anderson, a shepherd, was also charged, but did not appear, and a warrant for'his apprehension has been issued. Constable C. Q. Powell said the three men concerned followed Stanton from a dance into his boarding house, and forced their way into his room, where they beat him up. They made a thorough job of it. There was blood all over the floor. Stanton was well behaved at the dance. Stanton, in evidence, said he could give no reason why the men attacked him.