ENOCH
EVANS
love with them-meaning the mats (laughter) saying they would do for him when he got married (laughter). Shingler, the maid said: ―If you are not married now you never will be‖(laughter). The Town Clerk here mentioned that Reddick was a married man and a very respectable man. The witness, proceeding, said she said ―Au revoir‖ as the officer went out, the cook loosing him out by the door, when Mr Evans came down stairs with the steel poker in his hand and followed him out. She said that when Mr Evans came back and into the house the poker was bent, and that Mr Evans had said he did not care now he had bent the poker over the policeman‘s back. Under cross-examination she denied that there had been any impropriety. They confirmed they had been dismissed the following day from Mr Evans‘ employment. Dr Wilson (police surgeon) spoke as to examining P.C. Reddick, who had two swellings on the shoulder, one appearing to have been done by the thrust of a poker. Mr Plumptre, addressing the court for the defence, said that there was a little friendly tea party downstairs, and Mr Evans, waking from his sleep and hearing a man‘s voice, thought there were rogues in the house, went downstairs with the poker to protect his own property, and, seeing one of his servants with her hair down, and a big burly man escaping from his house, he dealt him two blows with the poker. It was fortunate the policeman was not hit on a more serious part of the body, and that more trouble had not come of the affair. He did not suggest impropriety of such a grave character as to amount to actual immorality had occurred, but he did suggest that being in the kitchen at such an unseemly hour, and the officer drinking the tea, which he must have known the girls had no right to give him, was very wrong indeed, and it was they who had led Mr Evans into the situation he was now in. The Bench after retiring for a short time fined the defendant (Enoch) 5s. and costs. (5s. old currency, pre decimalisation is to-day 25p).
A Fine and to pay costs. That was not the end of the matter.
A Paper the following day read: We are quite prepared to accept the statements of Police constable Reddick in explanation of his casual entertainment to breakfast by the maid servants of Mr. Enoch Evans early on Thursday morning; but the revelations made yesterday during the hearing of the summons brought by him against Mr. Evans for assault come at a particularly unfortunate time for the credit of the Walsall police force, and will only aggravate the criticism which has lately been directed against that body. Without discussing the merits of that case - which will no doubt form the subject of a fresh enquiry by the Watch Committee - we can only say that Mr. Evans has our sympathy for the disturbance he suffered, and express our opinion that if he had held his hand after learning that the disturber of his peace was a constable the case would probably have had a different ending.
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