SERIOUS ASSAULT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 636, 12 April 1929, Page 1

SERIOUS ASSAULT

WOMAN STRUCK WITH IRON BAR COVERED WITH BLOOD On a charge of indecently assaulting a girl four and a-half years of age on March 31, and committing bodily harm on a young woman, aged 20, on March 28, Bertram James O’Connor appeared before the Police Court this morning. Accused, who appeared before Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., said he had an alibi for the latter charge. On application of accused’s counsel, accused was remanded till April IS. Chief-Detective Hammond characterised it as one of the most serious cases that have appeared before the Court. Bail was fixed at £250. The charge of committing bodily harm arises out of a sensational occurrence in Mount Albert. When a young woman aged 20 years was travelling from the city she was accosted by a man who struck her a violent blow on the head with an iron bar, inflicting a wound four inches in length. The victim alighted from a tramcar near the Mount Albert Borough Council offices and walked along the Western Springs Road. Returning to make a purchase at a nearby store she saw a man standing against a fence. When she repassed he was still there and he began to follow her. After walking a short distance she stopped to allow him to pass, but he walked up to her and struck her a severe blow on the head, afterwards decamping. Screaming and with blood pouring down her face the young woman was found staggering along the road. She was taken to the home of Mr. Robert Graham, of 83 Western Springs Road. According to Mr. Graham, he heard screams in the evening when he was sitting in his kitchen. He rushed out and found a young woman, whom he knew, a few yards from the gate. She was staggering and screaming, but he caught her before she collapsed. “She was almost covered in blood and I thought her throat was cut,” said Mr. Graham. The parcels she was carrying were also blod-stained. The girl was not unconscious. She told him her assailant was up the road, but he could find him. An operation was performed on her head and she was removed to her own home at midnight. She was nearly two weeks in bed, but she is n °JJ P r °S re ssing satisfactorily. Owing to an impediment in the v oice the young woman found it impossible to scream as soon as she had been attacked, and it was some minntes before she could make herself heard.