Mexborough & Swinton Times September 14, 1921
A “Terror to the District.”
Mexborough Miner sent to Prison for Unprovoked Assault.
On Tuesday, at the Doncaster Police Court, Patrick McDermott, miner, of Mexborough, was sent to prison for two months for assaulting a young pit labourer, Horace Bower, of Wood street, on Monday, September 5th.
Mr. W. H. Carlile, prosecuting, said on this night complainant and his wife went for a walk along Main street and returned down Garden street about 10.30. When passing down Dolcliffe Hill they saw a crowd in the centre of which they saw a man lying unconscious on the ground, suffering from a wound on the head which was bleeding. They heard someone call out and ask the men to pick the man up, but no one took any notice except the complainant, who went and picked him up. He was an entire stranger to the man, but as soon as he had got him on his feet the defendant came up, struck him violently under the left eye and knocked him down. He was dazed and did not remember much more. The wound under his eye was an inch long, and as a result he was off work for a time. In addition the complainant was not a strong man, having recently been in a sanatorium. He was in no way connected with the disturbance. He, Mr. Carlile, asked the beach to take a serious view of the case.
Complaisant and his wife gate evidence bearing this out but defendant denied that he struck him. As he was going home he saw his wife, who told him that four men from Kilnhurst had been setting about her brother and complainant’s brother. He never saw the complainant; he went in to “wallop” these other four kids. Complainant was one of the nicest and quietest lads in Mexborough and he did not strike him. He had no reason to do so. lt was not the lad who had instituted the proceedings, but his mother, he alleged.
Replying to Mr. Carlile, he admitted he had laid one man out. He was not drunk, he had been teetotal for a week.
His wife corroborated.
Supt. Minty said the defendant had been convicted 21 times, although he was only a young man. He had been up for assault six time, and had been fined £3 and also committed for 14 days and a month, his last conviction being in October last year. He was undoubtedly a terror to the district.
The Chairman, Mr. G. B. Shiffner, said they considered it a very bad case, and no doubt the superintendent was right when he described him as a terror to the neighbourhood. He would have to go to prison for two months with hard labour.