A BRUTAL ASSAULT

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160736, 24 August 1920, Page 7

A BRUTAL ASSAULT

UPON AN ELDERLY MAN. ACCUSED SENT TO GAOL. At the Police Court this morning, before Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., Albert Thomas Welsh, aged .'l2 years, was charged ■with drunkenness and with assaulting Michael A. Whiteford on August 23. In outlining the case for the prosecution, Senior-Sergeant Bourke stated that accused entered Mr Whiteford’s shop and asked for a pound of sugar, and tendered payment with two threepenny pieces and a returned soldier’s badge. Mr Whiteford told aroused that he did not want to deprive him of the badge, and handed it back. Accused then became abusive, and remarked that Mr Whiteford should be put up against the wall and shot, as he was a Fritz. He then knocked Mr Whiteford down and kicked him in tlie face. Mr Whiteford, who is an elderly man, was badly cut about the face, and three stitches had to bo put in his forehead. During the scuffle Mrs Whiteford came to her husband’s assistance and got a young man to take the accused out of the shop. Once outside, accused wanted to continue lighting, and he was eventually taken to Mr Richardson’s shop and detained until a constable arrived. Michael Whiteford stated that shortly before 5 o’clock accused entered his shop and asked for a pound of sugar, which was supplied. He tendered two threepenny pieces and a soldier’s badge. Witness gave accused back the badge, and the latter remarked, “Are you ashamed of it? You are a Fritz, »and should be put up against a wall and shot.”. Accused then became very abusive, and went behind the counter and struck witness in the face. He knocked witness down and then kicked him two or three times in the face. The first kick struck witness on the nose and also cut his lip, and another cut his forehead, necessitating several stitches.

Mrs Whiteford said she heard accused call her husband a “'Fritz.” A struggle then ensued, and her husband was knocked down. Witness endeavoured unsuccessfully to get accused to desist. She then went for help, and got a young man to come in and take the accused out of the shop. Constable McMullen, who arrested accused, said the latter was excited and suffering from the effects of drink. He said the old man in the shop was a Fritz, and he wanted to do for him and uphold the honour of New Zealanders. Accused said lie had just come out of the Hospital and had been drinking, and had no recollection of what he had done. He had a recollection of fighting with someone in the street. Senior-Sergeant Bourke said accused was a boxing man, and according to a list of previous convictions he was evidently of a fighting disposition. The Magistrate said there were two courses open to him, either to send him for two years to Rotoroa Island or gaol. Accused: I have a wife and two children. I am a meat grader and labourer, and have been working at Imlay. Tbe Magistrate said he would not, under the circumstances, send accused to the island. Accused’s, action was a cowardly one, to assault the old man and then to try and shield himself under a half-drunken condition. It was intolerable that such conduct could lie permitted. Accused was then sentenced to a month’s, imprisonment on each charge, the sentence to be cumulative.