WIFE’S FACE SMACKED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25444, 27 January 1944, Page 6

WIFE’S FACE SMACKED

HUSBAND EXCEEDS HIS RIGHTS CONVICTED WITHOUT PENALTY (P.A.) . AUCKLAND, Jan. 26. That a husband had the right to chastise his wife in order to. prevent her . from being" immoral, was the submission: made by counsel this morning when John Walter Tinsley, aged 40, a foreman stevedore, was charged with assaulting his wife, Gladys Rose Tinsley. -The accused denied the charge. Mrs Tinsley, who had a slightly blackened eye, said in evidence that she had been living apart from .her ' husband for about three months. She was walking along a city street last evening in the company of an . Allied serviceman when her husband, approaching from behind, came between them and struck her. She ran down a side street. : - Mr E. L. Thwaites, counsel, said that while Tinsley , was away oh active service his wife had' become “tangled up” with servicemen. Information that his wife had been carrying on with servicemen during his absence was uhfortunately given to the, accused by one of his two children, a boy aged 11, Last , evening he met his wife and a serviceman by accident. They were walking arm in arm and showing the effects of alcohol, and his wife was carrying two bottles of beer. He told the serviceman the woman was his wife. Later he found them in each, other’s arms and he smacked his wife’s face.

- Tinsley, in evidence, denied that he struck his wife when he first saw her in the street, but had done so later when she was in a lane with the serviceman. Counsel submitted that in the circumstances the amount of chastisement was not, excessive. ,' y: The magistrate, Mr J. MOrling. said . that apparently Tinsley smacked his wife’s face without Stopping to think, but he had no right to do this. He was convicted and discharged.