ALLEGED ASSAULT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17526, 1 May 1925, Page 1

ALLEGED ASSAULT.

YOUNG MAN CHARGED AT CULVERDEN. COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. Mr W. Meldrum, S.M., presided at a sitting of the Magistrate's Court at Culverden yestferday. Ralph Horatio Loveday, aged nineteen, was charged with having indecently assaulted a woman, a patient of the Hanmer Hospital, on April 13, at Hanmer Plains. Mr Hunter appeared for accused. The principal witness stated that she was a married woman residing at St Albans, and a patient in the Hanmer Hospital. On Easter Monday at about p.m. she went for a walk along the Culverden Road. Some distance down the road she met accused with a horse

and dray. She asked him which was the main i oad to Christchurch and he told her which road to take. She saw him again about an hour afterwards. He had the draw down a lane off the main road. He called to her saying “Come down this way; this is the road.” She could see by the traffic marks it was not the right road, and she went on. Accused came after her and she ran into the middle of the road. lie put his arms around her and dragged her towards the lane. She struggled with him. The *bus came along and he ran away. She had been six months in the hospital for nerve trouble, but she was now much better than when admitted. She had never been for a walk for any distance outside the grounds before the day she was assaulted. James ('olvin motor-driver on the Hanmer-Culverden Road, stated that at about 11 a.m. on Easter Monday the previous witness told him that she intended to go for a walk down the road later in the day, and she asked him to give her a ride back he was returning from Culverden. At about 4.15 p.m. the same day, he crossed the Percival Bridge in his lorry to and about a quarter of a mile ahead he saw a man and woman on the road. As he got near he