PISTOL PRESENTED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 246, 29 July 1937, Page 3

PISTOL PRESENTED.

SHEEPFARMER AND EMPLOYEES. FINES OF £22 IMPOSED. (Per Press Association, j HASTINGS, July 28. Commenting that a man who carried out a joke such as he wanted the Court to believe could not be in his right senses, Mr J. Miller, S.M., imposed fines totalling £22 3s 6d on John Cutlibert Teschemaker-Shute, aged 67, of Tehouka Hill, Mangatalii, when lie appeared in the Hastings Magistrate s Court to answer charges of being in unlawful possession of an automatic pistol, unlawfully presenting a firearm, and being in possession • of automatic pistol ammunition. A former employee of the defendant, Gerald Martin Smith, said that two other employees had given notice. 'Defendant came into the kitchen, and, pointing an automatic pistol at witness’s chest, threatening to blow out his brains. Witness gathered that the idea was to intimidate him against giving notice. “He appeared to' be crazy,” witness added. “He opened the bottom of the pistol and took out the magazine containing cartridges, and asked me if I thought it would kill a man.”

Mavis Edna Hunt said she had given notice on July 6. Accused had told her that the cowboy had also given notice. “In the afternoon Smith came into the kitchen,” witness added. “While we were there accused came in carrying a revolver. He pointed the gun" in Smith’s direction, and said, ‘ Don’t you.’ He swore and threatened Smith. Later defendant 'fold witness he did not want Smith to leave, and said something about a dead man not leaving.” Sergeant John Mclntosh, of Hastings, said that defendant had told him lie did not want to intimidate Smith. He also said he had been “put out” that day through three of his employees giving notice in the middle of crutching, and he had produced the automatic as a joke. The pistol, when witness saw it, contained seven rounds. “The pistol had been lying in a drawer for two years,” accused said. “It was more or less derelict, and I would not have used it. I picked it up to go in as a joke. I held the pistol in the palm of my left hand, and said, ‘Look, Mavis, not three in one day.’ Smith asked what I had, and I showed it to him. Smith took out the magazine, and I made a remark about the bullets.” Replying to Senior-Sergeant G. Sivver,' defendant said he had been annoyed in the morning about the employees leaving. You say it was a joke?—l swear that.

Have you told others it was an intimidating joke?—No. If the revolver is unsafe, why did you handle it with a loaded magazine? _I did not think of the magazine.

The Magistrate imposed fines totalling £22 3s 6d.