BIT POLICEMAN.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 9

BIT POLICEMAN.

Seaman Faces Charges at Lyttelton.

Robert Paterson, an unemployed seaman, aged thirty-nine, appeared in the Lyttelton Magistrate’s Court this morning before Messrs F. E. Sutton, J.P., and W. T. Foster, J.P., on charges, of drunkenness, using obscene language, and unlawfully assaulting Constable Jackways. Accused pleaded guilty to the charge of drunkenness, but when questioned as to how he would plead on the other two charges he said that he did not know anything about them. Constable Baynes said that he saw Paterson coming out of the Mitre Hotel and he heard him making obscene remarks in the hearing of passers-by. Constable Jackways said he saw Paterson being evicted from the hotel by two barmen. Paterson endeavoured to re-enter the hotel, but was prevented from doing so. When witness was engaged in searching the accused at the police station, the accused bit witness’s little finger to the bone. Sergeant W. H. Dunlop said that Paterson had been before the Court previously for similar offences. Whenever he was under the influence of liquor he seemed to go mad. The Bench said that they took a serious view of the charges. Paterson would be convicted and discharged for drunkenness, and fined. £5, in default one month’s imprisonment, for using obscene language. On the charge of assaulting the police, they would inflict a further fine of £5, in default one month’s imprisonment, the sentences to be cumulative.