“MUST NOT TAKE LAW INTO OWN HANDS”

Wanganui Chronicle, 11 March 1947, Page 6

“MUST NOT TAKE LAW INTO OWN HANDS”

MAGISTRATE’S ADVICE TO MAN WHO HIT ANOTHER “If you had suffered assault you had your legal remedy and could have charged this man, but the law does not allow you to take matters into your own hands and avenge an assault,” said Mr. J. H. Salmon, S.M., alter Gervan Hogg had been charged in the Magistrate’s Court, Wanganui, yesterday, with striking another person in a public place. He pleaded guilty through his counsel, Mr. C. F. Treadwell. A fin e of £3, with costs 13s, was imposed. Sergeant W. Tumill y told the Court that at 11.45 p.m. on Saturday, February 8, defendant, was one of a group of young men in the parking area off Cameron Terrace, near the Public Library. An argument d< veloped and defendant struck another man a heavy blow on the jaw. A light, would have resulted, but the others pulled them apart. A constable had witnessed the blow. “There wa s not much damage done, but this could have resulted in a serious breach of the peace,” Sergeant Tumilty added. Mr. Treadwell submitted that defendant had told him that he attended a dance in Victoria Avenue that night. For no reason the other man concerned struck him in Victoria Avenue. The young men were cn their way to another dance hall when Hogg was again accosted in th e parking place off Cameron Terrace. “He thought he was going to be assaulted again, so he go: in first and struck the other man on the jaw,"counsel added.