YOUNG MAN FINED FOR ASSAULT

Wanganui Chronicle, 12 March 1947, Page 6

YOUNG MAN FINED FOR ASSAULT

SEQUEL TO MINOR ACCIDENT After pleading guilty in the Magistrate's. Court, Wanganui, yesterday, to a charge of assault, Patrick William Farrell, single, aged 25, recently employed as a scrub-cutter at Brunswick, was fined £5 by Mr. J. H. Salmon, S.M., in default 10 days’ imprisonment. “If you had injured this man I would most certainly have sent you to gaol,” said the magistrate.

Sergeant M. E. Parker, who prosecuted, told the Court that on Monday evening an official of the Railways Department was told that the departmental car he drove had been concerned in an accident. He inspected the car, parked near the railway station, and accused approached as the driver of the other vehicle, asking if the car was damaged.

Accused asked for the official’s name, but was told that the damage was so minor that it did not require further consideration. Farrell subsequently adopted a very nasty attitude, seized the man by the lapels of his coat and forced him against a wall. The railwayman then gave his name. Accused was not drunk, but had been drinking.

Accused admitted to the magistrate that he had previous convictions for disorderly conduct while drunk, obscene language, threatening behaviour. assault and one of burglary and theft.

Accused was fined £lO for assault, and on a further charge of driving a motor vehicle without a licence was fined £l, costs 10s. He was also ordered to pay 30s taxi hire, incurred by the police in their efforts to locate him.