MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24900, 13 June 1946, Page 3

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

(Before Mr Reymond Ferner. S.M.I \ DAMAGE AND theft Bruce Watts Harding. ag«l S°, hotelporter (Mr E. M. Hay). ,nd O'Grady, aged 22. barman (Mr F. D. Sargent) pleaded guilty to a of damaging a railway carriage. O Grady pleaded guilty -to a further. charge of stealing, oh June «. a case containing 12 bottles ot whisky, valued at ill ,Bs. the property of Ballins Breweries Ltd. TTie accused. Harding, pleaded guilty to st®® l " mg a fountain-pen and a camera, of a total value of £l6 12s 6d. the property of Roy James Spiers: guilty to stealing a string of pearls, valued at £l2 12s. the property of Mary Ella Milburn; guilty to stealing a woman’s bag and contents, of a total value c< £l, and stealing a case of gin, valued at £9 3s 7d, the property of Ballins Breweries, JAd. On June 4, the accused had gone to Lyttelton, where they had taken a lot ot drink, said Detective-Sergeant A. A. Herron. On the way back to Christchurch they had accidentally broken the window of a railway carriage, and had refused to give their names. When they were walking away from the Milway station they passed a brewery truck, and O’Grady removed a case o-f whisky. A constable found him sitting on the case further up the road. Harding had taken the gin and concealed it in a vacant section. The other charges against him arose from thefts from rooms in hotels, and the woman’s bag had been stolen frorn * dance hall. Both accused had been franK and did not have criminal records. O’Grady had paid for the carriage windMr Sargent suggested that O’Grady’s actions had been foolish. He came from A good famfly and his employer was willing to re-employ him. For Harding, Mr Hay said that he had left school at the age of 14 and had been working about hotels since he was 17. It was submitted that he had been subject to undue temptation because of the nature of his employment. The Magistrate said that he would give effect to the submission of O’Grady s counsel, and the accused was admitted to probation for two years. To Harding, the Magistrate said: "You have pleaded guilty to a succession of thefts committed on a number of occasions.” On each of two charges of theft, Harding was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment with hard labour, the terms to be concurrent. On the other charges he was convicted and discharged. BREACH OF REGULATIONS Norman Edgar Stallard, aged 30, a musician, was fined £2O for a breach of the National Service Emergency Regulations. The charge was that he failed to comply with an order made by Mr M. J. Gresson, a member of a special tribunal, in that ho failed to render a return of income for the period from April 1, 1944, to December 31, 1945. When asked how he pleaded, the accused replied*. "I do not intend to plead to that charge." This was interpreted as a plea of not guilty. Mr A. W. Brown, who appeared for the District Manpower Officer, said that the accused was one of those persons who had a particular idea of their duty to the State. He was a conscientious objector, and he had appealed against service in the Armed Forces. When his appeal was allowed, he came under the jurisdiction of a special tribunal which dealt with conscientious objectors, add en order was made that he should render particulars of income that he earned. He had been summoned to appear before the tribunal, but had not done so, and had been fined £lO in the Magistrate’s Court for that breach of the act. Several re- ' quests had been made to him for a return of income, but he had replied that he did not recognise the authority of the tribunal or the act. t "At sAme stage he must have changed his views, because he originally took advantage of the act to appeal against military service.” said Mr Brown. Wilfred Charles Mason, secretary of the special tribunal, gave evidence that the accused had not complied with requests. To the Magistrate, he said that It was generally known that the accusecFhad no excess of income over the permissible maximum. "My reason for not giving a plea is merely that I consider that the National Service regulations are so linked up with the organisation of war that I will not recognise their authority and cannot obey any order made under them,” said the accused. The Magistrate: Nevertheless you appear to have taken advantage of the regulations in applying for exemption from service. "Yes, my. appeal was allowed, but in a letter to the tribunal later I said that I no longer observed the regulations,”), replied the accused. “I feel that some tangible objection must be made to regulations directed against pacifism.” BUTCHERS CHARGED Two charges of offering to sell meat at prices not in conformity with the relevant Price Order, egainat Albert Thomas Edwards and Thomas Wright Edwards, trading a<_T; W .Edwaftta and Son. were Adjourned *to July 17. - Frank Mitchel! WBs fintd £5 for selling meat at a price not in conformity with the relevant Price Order. Mr J. D. Hutchison, for the Price Tribunal, said that a joint had been sold at 4s Bd. when the charge should have been 3s lljd. Mr W. F. Tracey, for Mitchell, said the offence had been committed by an assistant, on a busy Friday. BUILDING REGULATIONS Five charges were brought by the District Building Controller, for whom Mr A. W. Brown prosecuted, and were dealt with as follows: For building without permits. Tom de la Mare was fined £3, Arthur Francis Killner was fined £6, and Reginald Edwin Shearer was fined £3. ~ Lester Thewlis Loversidge was fined £3 for doing constructional work not in accordance with a permit granted. For doing reconstruction work without a permit, Leonard Chappell was fined £3. After the cases were dealt with, thh Magistrate said that in a previous case a penalty of £25 had been imposed. In the Cases just dealt with the breaches had not been of a very serious character, and the amount of material used had not been very great. He did not want the impression to go abroad that the regulations would not be enforced: they would be, and if serious breaches came before the Court, there would be substantial