SERIOUS ASSAULT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 637, 13 April 1929, Page 13

SERIOUS ASSAULT

WOMAN STRUCK WITH IRON BAR COVERED WITH BLOOD ! On a charge of indecently assaulting | a girl four and a-half . years on [ March 31. and committing bodily harm Job a young woman, aged 20, on March I 28, Bertram James O’Connor appeared 1 before the Police Court yesterday. | Accused, who appeared before Mr. F. i K. Hunt, S.M., said he had an alibi for : j the latter charge. J On application of accused’s counsel, accused was remanded till April IS. Chief-Detective Hammond characterj ised it as one of tne most serious cases ] that have appeared before the Court. Bail was fixed at £250. The charge of committing ! bodily harm arises out of a sen-. | sational occurrence in Mount Albert. ! When a young woman aged 20 years was travelling from the city j she was accosted by a man who | struck her a violent blow on the head j with an iron bar, inflicting a wound j four inches in length. | The victim alighted from a tramcar | near the Mount Albert Borough Counj cil offices and walked along the West- : ern Springs Hoad. 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. j After walking a short distance she | stopped to allow him to pass, but he i j walked up to her and struck her a i j severe blow on the head, afterwards } ; decamping. | Screaming and with blood pouring j | down her face the young woman was ; | found staggering along the road. She i was taken to the home of Mr. Robert j Graham, of 83 Western Springs Road. According to Mr. Graham, he heard I j screams in the evening when he was ; sitting in his kitchen. He rushed out | | and found a young woman, whom he 1 I knew, a few.yards from the gate. She I | was staggering and screaming, but he I caught her before she collapsed. “She was almost covered in blood I and I thought her throat was cut,” said Mr. Graham. The parcels she was carrying were I also blood-stained. The girl was not I unconscious. She told him her assailant was up the road, but he could not find him. An operation was performed 0n..-her head and she was removed to her own home at midnight. She was nearly two weeks in bed, but she is now progressing satisfactorily. J Owing to an impediment in the j voice the young woman found it imI possible to scream as soon as she had I been attacked, and it was some minj utes before she could make herself j heard.