Assault claim at mayoral forum

Police are investigating an alleged assault at a Wanganui mayoral election forum earlier this week after a candidate's mother claimed that a man had hit her several times.

``I was heckling, I admit that,'' said Barbara Osborne yesterday, ``You are allowed to do that. But I didn't expect what happened.''

She is the mother of mayoral candidate Chandra Osborne who chose not to attend the forum. She said she was trying to get the organisers to explain why Chandra wasn't there.

The forum was arranged by the Wanganui Chronicle newspaper and conducted by the editor Kirsty Macnicol. Chandra Osborne is involved in a dispute with the Chronicle.

Mrs Osborne said she had heard Ms Macnicol tell the Monday night forum that Chandra had declined to attend.

``I called out `Will you tell them why?' but she [Ms Macnicol] kept going on, talking over me.''

Upset by her lack of success, Mrs Osborne said, she persisted with her request until a man behind her leaned over about two rows of seats and ``banged me on the back of my shoulder.''

``He kept calling out `Chandra, Chandra', but I told him I was her mother.

``Then he said `You will be removed if you don't be quiet'. I told him that if he touched me again he would be in trouble.''

Mrs Osborne, who is only 157cm tall, said the man had struck her about six times with what felt like the back of his hand.

Even through her coat the blows felt ``quite hard''.

She felt ``upset and degraded'' when she left the meeting.

``I was wasted,'' she said.

The next day she expected to see the incident reported in the newspaper, but when it wasn't, she telephoned the Chronicle to ask who the man was. She said no one would tell her. Because the blows had been ``quite a bang'' she laid a complaint with Wanganui police and was later told that the man was a member of the Chronicle staff who was now on holiday and that the newspaper proposed to deal with the matter internally.

Chronicle chief reporter Andrew Koubaridis confirmed that there had been a meeting between police and Ms Macnicol over the ``alleged assault'' which he said had been no more that ``a few gentle taps on the shoulder''.

When pressed, he declined to comment further saying the matter was sub judice.

Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws, who was seated on the stand at the forum, said that neither he nor the other mayoral candidates were positioned to see what had happened to Mrs Osborne.

``The Wanganui Chronicle editor Kirsty Macnicol was speaking at the start when there was some sort of upset or brouhaha,'' he said.

He couldn't hear what was being called out and said that none of the candidates were any the wiser.

Mr Laws didn't think the man involved was ``the kind of person who would assault anyone''.

Yesterday Chandra Osborne said told the Manawatu Standard she didn't attend the forum because she accused the Chronicle of hiding and covering up ``certain events and topics'' and letting the public see only the side the paper wanted to present.

The Chronicle reported on Tuesday that about 120 people had attended the forum.

In response to a questionnaire distributed at the meeting 64 people said their choice for mayor was candidate John Martin. Mr Laws received 41 votes, Russell Fleming got one, and neither Randhir Dahya or Chandra Osborne received a vote.