Edwin Edgar – September 10th 1948
GOYTRE FARMER FINED for ASSAULTING PC
A 78 year old farmer, who pleaded not guilty at Pontypool on Saturday to assaulting a police constable while in the execution of his duty, was alleged to have been annoyed because the local authority had sent workman to lay on a water supply to a Goytre cottage he owned.
He was Edwin Edgar, of Ynys-picca, Goytre. The magistrates fined him £5 with an alternative of one month’s imprisonment.
PC Kenneth Jenkins (Little Mill) said he was requested by a sanitary inspector to keep an eye on Edgar, who was making trouble at the cottage and shouting threats and abuse at the workmen. He went to the site and it was necessary for him to take Edgar away from there to his own home nearby.
“As I released him, he grabbed a length of piping with both hands and swung it at my head. I warded the blow off with my arm and my wrist watch was broken,” said the constable.
PC Jenkins then took Edgar to Pontypool Police Station in a car. He used as little force as possible. When charged Edgar told him: “You won’t forget this.”
Rather Pitiful
George Harold Wragg, foreman piper employed by the firm of contractors laying the water supply, testified to Edgar’s bad behaviour, and William Thomas Jones, an engineer, described the old man’s attitude as “abusive and rather pitiful.”
Edgar, who was represented by Mr Harold Saunders, told the court he wanted to be sure the workmen were not damaging a sewer he laid about ten years ago. He contended the constable handled him roughly, denied being abusive and also denied picking up the lead pipe and striking a blow. “I did not threaten the workmen. It was private property and they had no right in there,” he added.
Mr Saunders said Edgar had been ordered by Pontypool RDC to lay the water supply himself. The pipe he was alleged to have used to commit the assault was one of several he had bought to do the work.