BOY GIVEN HIDING

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 227, 24 April 1933, Page 5

BOY GIVEN HIDING

ASSAULT CHARGE FOLLOWS

"Affair in Stratford Back

Street"

MAN FINED £2

A squabble among some children playing at the side of a house in Falstaff Street on April 10 had its sequel in the Stratford Court to-dav before Mr. W. H. Woodward. S.M., when Sidney John Oakley, a relief worker, was fined £2 and costs £1 7s on a charge of assaulting a bov named Gordon White.

Relating the facts of the case Sergeant. Kelly said that on Hie date in question Gordon White, with his sister Thelnia, were playing cricket at the side of the house occupied by Mrs. Robertson, of Palstaff Street, whose little boy was also playing with them. Joyce Oakley, aged five years, the daughter of the defendant, was also there. The girl Oakley was annoying the elder children in that she wanted the bat or the ball all the time and would not let them proceed with the game. When they would not give way to her she lay on the ground and started to kick and scream. Later, it is alleged, she spat at the other children. Mrs. Robertson was watching the children from the kitchen window and when she saw the attitude that the child Joyce Oakley was taking up she knocked at the window and told her to go home. She refused and Mrs. Robertson went out into the back yard and told her son and Gordon White to put her out. When they attempted to do this the child screamed so much that Mrs. Robertson told them to leave her. The boy, Gordon White, then coaxed the child out to the gate by saying that there was a ball there, and when she went out he stood beside a hole near the gate and would not. let her come in. He put his hand against her face to prevent her going back. When she, could not get in the child commenced to scream again, continued Sergeant Kelly, and her father appeared on the scene. He ran along the footpath and opened the gate, caught hold of Gordon White and said "Now, you little , I've got you." He then struck the boy on the face and head with his open hand several times and the force of the blows knocked the boy down. Whilst he lay on the ground the defendant kicked him twice in the small of the back and left him. lying there. The boy rose but fell down suffering from the kicks on ins back. Tile boy was later attended by Mrs. Robertson, who saw tlie whole occurrence.

Sergeant Kelly said that he had examined till) boy the same evening and found the skin raised over a portion of tiie lower part of the spine. Delendant had some previous convictions. Mr. Moss: The sergeant has gone out of his way to damn this defendant, whom 1 appeared for in connection With a previous offence. Sergeant Kelly: 1 beg your pardon, sir. i am placing fuels before the court. 1 have not damned the man and have certainly not gone out of my way in placing Uio case .before the court. Mr. Moss: You have made a big mouthful of it. . The Magistrate: I don't think the sergeant went out of the way. Mr. Moss: The whole thing is a storm in a teacup and merely a neighbour's matter in a back street of Stratford. Continuing, Mr. Moss said that defendant was a relief worker making an honest attempt to rehabilitate himself, together with his wife and two children. The iact of tile matter was that Cordon W'tiite, a boy of about nine years of age, was actually giving Oakley's girl a hiding when he (Oakley) arrived. It was submitted therefore that the boy White should be answering a charge of assault and not Oakley. In regard to the injury to the boy's back he had been instructed that the previous day he had received a thrashing from his own parents. Sergeant Kelly: I want to make it quite clear that the boy's back was bleeding when i examined it. ' The magistrate commented that such an injury was liable to cause injury for life.