DRUNKEN HOOLIGANS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21969, 22 May 1941, Page 4

DRUNKEN HOOLIGANS

Dance Patron “ Beaten Up ” TWO MONTHS* IMPRISONMENT (PA.) NEW PLYMOUTH. May 21. “I find it almost incredible in a country where life and limb is supposed to be safe that drunken hooligans can pursue an unoffending man into his temporary home and into his room and then beat him up. That is the sort of thing that happens in other countries, Germany, for instance, but it is not going to happen here.” This comment was made by Mr W. H. Woodward. SM., in the Waitara Magistrate’s Court when he sentenced William Lake, a farm hand, of Awakino and Alble Rowan, a farm hand, of Mahoenui, to two months’ imprisonment on a charge of assaulting William Theodore Stanton, at Awakino. Rua Anderson, a shepherd, of Otorohanga, also was charged but he did not appear. A warrant for his apprehension has been Issued. Constable C. Q. Powell said that the three men concerned followed Stanton from a dance into his boardinghouse and forced their way into his room, where they beat him up. They made a thorough job of it. There was blood all over the floor. Stanton was well behaved at the dance. Stanton, in evidence, said he could give no reason why the men attacked him.