"NOT A BAD PLACE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 748, 22 August 1929, Page 6

"NOT A BAD PLACE”

PRISONER RESIGNED TO GAOL TERM ROWDY IN COURT “Mount Eden’s not a bad place anyway,” said Andrew O’Neill resignedly, after hearing evidence given against him in the Police Court this morning. O'Neill had called down the wrath of the Bench all through the case for his somewhat startling interjections. "PRESCRIBED as a labourer, aged 52, O’Neill appeared for a sentence on a charge of committing mischief on April 12 by wilfully damaging a window valued at £lO, belonging to Charles Grant. When O’Neill was convicted his explanation was that he had broken the window merely because he wanted to. This morning he faced a further charge of being the owner of a dog that attacked a woman in Maidstone Street on June 20. “I haven’t got a dog,” was O’Neill’s reply to this charge. Sub-Inspector McCarthy said that the complainant was ill, but there were witnesses who could tell the court what had happened. Two women who were neighbours of O’Neill’s said that the dog had jumped on the woman, tearing her coat. There was no doubt that the dog belonged to O’Neill, as both witnesses had seen him with the animal on many occasions. The second witness had gone with complainant to see O’Neill about the dog, but he w ould not believe their story, so they had enlisted the aid of the police. Since that day they had not seen the dog. According to Constable McKenna, of Newton, he had twice interviewed O’Neill about the woman’s complaint. The first time the man had denied that he owned a dog and later he said that he had disposed of the animal six weeks before the alleged attack. O’Neill: What a d lie! O’Neill urged that the constable was telling a deliberate lie. As a matter of fact he had lost the dog. Previous witnesses had said that they had seen him with. his horse and cart and a dog recently. “I sold the hors.e and cart last October, so nobody could have seen us all together,” said O’Neill triumphantb r . On the dangerous dog charge O’Neill was ordered to pay damages 10s and witnesses’ expenses £l. He was also ordered to make good the cost of the broken window, £lO, in default one month’s imprisonment.