Eric Flynn has brought a private prosecution against his wife Ethel for actual bodily harm. He alleges that at the last new year he was hit by her with a saucepan when he returned home unexpectedly late at night. As a result he required stitches in a head wound. Ethel denies the charges and the defence suggest that Eric was drunk at the time and has wrongly accused her. They say he was assaulted by someone else, possibly Ethel's mother or in the street by an unknown assailant.