ALLEGED “PEEPING TOM”

Taranaki Daily News, 25 July 1929, Page 7

ALLEGED “PEEPING TOM”

FEILDING MAN FINED.

Palmerston N., July 23.

Complaints have been made in Feilding for some time that a “Peeping Tom” had been making himself active. As the result of information giveh to the police, William Pengelly, of Feilding, appeared in the Magistrate’s Court to-day before Messrs. E. Goodbehere and E. H. Fisher, J.’sP., pleading guilty to a charge of being found, in an enclosed area by night. Sergeant Cahill, whoprosecuted for the police, said that for several months back complaints had been received from the people in the town of peeping being done through their windows. Night after night the police had tried unsuccessfully to ’ catch the culprit or culprits, but suspicion had fallen oh some persons, and defendant was one of them. He had been found in a paddock in South Street, adjoining Kowhai Park, one night. A man was sitting on a seat in the park with a young lady. Heaving a noise, he looked round and saw defendant watching them. He went up to him and gave him a slight thrashing which, said the sergeant, he deserved, and later reported the matter to the police. Pengelly had taken an empty sack \with him to lie on while at his practice. It was regrettable that proceedings had to be taken, as defendant was a married man with a family. Mr. Mason, who appeared for defendant, said that he had been treated for a nervous complaint which necessitated his wetting away by himself to be quiet. On this particular evening he had been sitting in Kowhai Park for some time and had got up to go out, and m order to avoid the man mentioned and his younw lady he had crossed a paddock on his way home. He thought that the Court could disregard any suggestion that defendant had been “peeping” at the time or was associated in any way with the cases the police had mentioned. . Sergeant Cahill remarked that if evidence 0 was wanted it could be produced. On Mr. Mason’s saying defendant was now in hospital as a result of the thrashing he had received, the sergeant replied that he had a letter from defendant stating that he was in hospital on account °of a nervous complaint, and he made no mention of the thrashing beinw the cause of his being there. • Counsel asked for a light fine, contending that defendant’s illness and thrashing had made him a hospital In imposing a fine of £1 the Bench stated they had taken into consideration the fact that the publicity of the case would be a heavy punishment.