DISMISSED AS TRIVIAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22992, 8 September 1944, Page 6

DISMISSED AS TRIVIAL

Charge Of Assault Proved Accused Claims To Be “Psychic” Jane Charlotte Firth Butt, an elderly married woman, was charged in the Timaru Magistrate's Court yesterday with assaulting Lois Dawn Baker at Timaru on August 23. Although Mr H. Morgan, S.M., treated the charge as proved, he dismissed it as trivial. Butt, who pleaded not guilty, was represented by Mr G. J. Walker, and Sergeant E. J. C. Hay prosecuted. After finishing work at 10.20 p.m., the complainant went to the Bank of New Zealand cornel- to catch a bus home, but finding that the bus was overcrowded she decided to take a taxi, said Sergeant Hay. She was waiting for the taxi when it was alleged the accused approached her and said: “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know what you are here for. It is a man.” The accused, it was alleged, caught the complainant by the lapel of her coat and smacked her face. The accused proved difficult to interview, and told the police that she was “psychic.” In evidence, the complainant added that the accused had also hit her on the leg with a stick. Tire accused departed saying: “One day you will meet your Master.” Witness had never seen the accused before. When he interviewed the accused at

her home at the Watlington store, she requested that he should do nothing about the matter, said Constable A. Gregory. She said that there was nothing to it, but admitted striking the girl with a stick. She told the constable that she wanted “to show them up,” arfti added that the people in her neighbourhood annoyed her. She claimed she was “psychic,” and although she had attended the pictures on the night of the complaint she “had been warned not to go.” To Mr Walker, Constable Gregory said that he thought the accused was a little eccentric. She had been in a mental institution in 1920. The defence was a denial of the charge, said Mr Walker. He called Christina Tavener, who had attended the pictures with the accused and the accused’s husband. Witness said that she heard some words between the accused and the complainant, but witness affirmed that the accused did not raise a hand to the complainant. Arthur Edgar Butt, the husband, said that his wife was not close enough to touch the girl. He and his wife could not sleep at nights because of the boys and girls on the bus seat outside his home until 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning, Butt continued. He had spoken to the Child Welfare Officer about them. “We need some protection up our way, as the children go mad at times,” he added. In view of the mental condition of the accused he would not call her as a witness, said Mr Walker. Referring to the uncontradicted evidence of the constable that the accused had admitted striking the girl with a stick, the Magistrate said that assault had been proved although it was not severe. The accused might not be fully responsible for what she did. Considering the age of the accused, her mental state in the past, her possible present mental state and the fact that the girl had not been hurt to any extent, the Magistrate dismissed the charge as trivial. He added that the husband of the accused would have to make sure that his wife behaved herself on the street in future.