WOMAN ASSAULTED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 134, 8 June 1937, Page 8

WOMAN ASSAULTED

ACCUSED PLEADS GUILTY STORY TOLD IN COURT I Per Press Association. I CHRISTCHURCH, June 7. Wearing a bandage round her head, Mrs Grace Abbott, of Faraday Street, Sydenham, entered the witness box in the Magistrate's Court to-day to give evidence against Frederics Thomas Wilder, labourer, aged 22, who was charged with breaking and entering her house by night on May 30 and causing her bodily harm. He pleaded guilty and was committed for sentence. Mrs Abbott said that she lived alone. On Saturday, May 29, she went to bed before midnight after locking and bolting the doors and windows. In the early hours she was awakened by a blow which dazed her. She was struck again and then heard her door bang and foots-.eps retreating. "I screamed then and jumped out of bed," said Mrs Abbott. Going to the kitchen door, she found it being held against her. Pushing it open she found a man in the room, the light being on. “He turned to run and I threw myself at him, as he seemed to be going to strike me,” continued Mrs Abbott, who said that she recognised her assailant as Fred Wilder. “I said, ‘Freddie, what are you doing here?’ He replied, ‘What am I doing here? How did I get here?”

Wilder told Mrs Abbott that he had been struck on the head by a motorcar. Wilder remained in the house until about 6.45 in the morning, and said that he had come for money. Wilder showed her the cudgel, lead weighted with a rubber handle, with which he had struck her.

Mrs Abbott said that she took Wilder home in a taxi, picking up his cycle on the way. When they arrived at Wilder’s home he climbed over the fence and disappeared. She went in and saw his parents. Dr. Vivian said that he considered that Mrs Abbott had been lucky to escape more serious injury. Wilder, in a statement stated that he had made the cudgel nine days before. He had broken into the house on May 29. He had decided to break into Mrs Abbott's home. When he was searching her room for money she rawed, so he struck her. She screamed and he struck again, then going out of the room. Later, Wilder stated, he helped Mrs Abbott to bathe her head and she drove him home. Wilder said that he wanted money to go to the country to get work. He was a farm labourer and unemployed. __________