Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 11 November 1932
Ejected Lodger
Prison For Fierce Assault
A Mexboro’ Squabble
Backward squabble occupied the attention of the Doncaster magistrates for some time on Tuesday. One case resulted in a Mexborough resident being sent to prison for 28 days.
The man was Wm. O’Brien, who was summoned for assault on Harriet Roberts and her husband, at 11, Lower Dolcliffe Road, Mexborough, with whom he had resided.
Mrs. Robert. Said that on Oct. 30th, her husband ran into her home bleeding front the knowns and mouth and saying that O’Brien had assaulted bun. They locked the door and she let her husband out of the house from a window by means of a clothesline to go for the police. No sooner had she done this than O’Brien burst open the back door, breaking the lock in doing so, and chased her upstairs. She ran into a bedroom and fastened the door.
O’Brien’s wife pulled him out of the house but he then started to throw bricks through the bedroom window. I had my baby in the room and was afraid it would be hit by the flying glass. I took the baby in my arms and tried to get out of the house without O’Brien seeing me. He did and caught me in a passage. He tried to pull the baby out of my arms and then struck me several times. I came round to find a doctor and two neighbours with me in my house.
Her husband said that his wife asked him to fetch some pastries and on returning he saw O’Brien. “He started to run towards me so I ran too but be caught me as I was trying to open our gate.”
Roberts alleged that O’Brien hit him on the head, knocked him to, the ground and also kicked him. O’Brien’s wife came and said, “Give it him right while you are at it.”
P.c. Stafford gave evidence that Roberts ran to him in High Street on Oct. 30th at 2.55p.m. He was terrified. He had three lump, at the back of his head and was bleeding from nose and mouth. When the officer saw O’Brien about 5 o’clock the same day. O’Brien said. “He asked for it and he got it. He has turned me out and accused me of breaking his wireless.”
O’Brien said the trouble bad started through a tiff between his wife and Mrs. Roberts, which resulted in his being turned out of the Roberts home. They were relatives by marriage. “I thrashed him for turning my wife and small child out into the rain and because of what he has also done and said. No other man would have done what he has done.”
The Chairman (Mr. M. L. Ham), said O’Brien had done “a very serious thing” in taking the law into his own hands. He would committed for 14 days on each charge, the sentence to run consecutively.