DOMESTIC QUARREL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20064, 22 March 1935, Page 6

DOMESTIC QUARREL

ASSAULT CHARGE DISMISSED The outcome of a domestic quarrel on March 15 was the appearance in the Magistrates Court yesterday of Frederick Leslie Morgan, who was charged with assaulting his daughter Mildred Morgan. Accused, who was represented by Mr L. M. Inglis, pleaded not guilty. Sergeant J. Hodgson said that as a result of a complaint, Constable Watt had gone to accused’s place where he saw the daughter assaulted. He had arrested Morgan. Constable Watt said that he visited Morgan’s place about 9 p.m. when there was an argument between Morgan, his wife and his daughter. Morgan appeared .to become annoyed and made a rush at his daughter, knocking her up against the pantry wall. Witness then decided to arrest accused before he could do any further damage. Morgan was not the worse for liquor. To Mr Inglis, witness said that the wife and daughter were making allegations against Morgan and he was denying them and trying to give his version. In the course of the argument Mildred Morgan called her father a liar and he called her “a liar.” He said “you get out,” and gave her a push. Witness thought that if Morgan were allowed to remain in the house he might do some damage so he arrested him. Morgan had spent the night in the lock-up and had bailed himself out in the morning. There had been no punching. Mildred Morgan, aged 23 years, said that when she left the house at 1 p.m., her father told her not to come back, but her mother told her she was to come back. When she came home about 9 o’clock her father said he had warned her not to come back and became annoyed, pushing her against the wall. She had bruised her side badly. She said her father had used force on her several times before that. Under cross-examination, witness would not deny that she had frequently come home after giving up her situations. She admitted that she had called her father a liar, although he had called her far worse names than that. Mr Inglis submitted that the incident had arisen out of a dispute in which there was nothing. The assault was trivial, and he submitted that the Magistrate should dismiss the information under the Justices of the Peace Act. The Magistrate said that he was not concerned with the quarrel but only with the assault. Constable Watt had been justified in taking action and, when the argument got to the stage where they were calling each other nasty names, he was justified in seeing that they went no further. "It is just possible that Morgan himself might have been the sufferer, if he had remained,” remarked the Magistrate, who said that the case did not call for any further punishment than that which Morgan had already suffered in spending a night in gaol and having to defend the case. He. therefore, dismissed the case under the Justices of the Peace Act?