BOOKMAKER FINED

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 92, 12 January 1935, Page 22

BOOKMAKER FINED

Magistrate’s Court Cases

THEFT FROM CONSTABLE

| A tine of £l2/10/-, in default three I weeks’ imprisonment, was imposed in | the Wellington Magistrate's Court yes terday on Hector Berkahn, aged 20. clerk, who was convicted on a charge of carrying on business as a bookmaker He was given 14 days to pay the fine. Detective-Sergeant Hall said that for some time until the middle of November, Berkahn had been living in a boarding-house in Kent Terrace. The police received complaints that he was betting, and a constable visited him and placed three bets. Berkahn left Wellington shortly afterward and was arrested on warrant at Palmerston North. It was believed that accused, when taking bets in the boardinghouse, on occasions had not been paying out when a winner was struck, he added. The fact that under the ■ particular form of charge made by the police the maximum penalty was £5OO was pointed out by Mr. J. Meltzer. He' said it would have been more correct to have made the “common gaming-house” charge. Berkahn already had been in custody for over a week. He had had no previous convictions of any sort, ami had been unable to work for some time because of illness. It was apparent that in his bookmaking he was among the “small fry” of Wellington. Blackmail Alleged “We look upon this charge as particularly serious. Accused was living with a woman in England for a number of years He then came to New Zealand, and our allegation is that he sent letters threatening to expose some 1 of her past life if she did not send him £100,” said Detective-Sergeant Hal’, when asking for a remand. The charge was of demanding £lOO from a woman “with intent to steal it” Accused, a company manager, of 'Wei lington, was remanded .to appear on January.l6. He asked for suppression of his name, which was granted by the magistrate, Mr. W. F. Stilwell. He pleaded not guilty. Ball was allowed in the. sum of £75, with a surety of £75. New Bicycle For an Old One A bicycle that •is worth now probably considerably more than when it was stolen was ordered to be returned to the original owner when Lloyd Nicholson, aged 18, pleaded guilty to the theft. Accused was also charged with stealing goods worth 35/- from the firm of Healing and C 0.,. Ltd., to which he also pleaded guilty. Senior-Sergeant O’Neill said the bicycle, which was valued at £5, was taken from the home of S. S. Williams, and at accused’s home entirely dismantled. Some of the parts were thrown away, and these were replaced by parts bought and also stolen from the firm of Healing’s. Other parts were added. Thus the position arose that the bicycle at present might be regarded as the property of two persons. The magistrate ordered the whole of the bicycle to be given to Williams. On the first charge Nicholson was convicted and admitted to probation for two years, and on the second 'he was ordered to make good the 35/-. Constable’s Torch Taken “I might plead that when accused took the constable’s torch he did so because, having discovered that Iris own had been stolen, he thought it was the same torch in the constable’s car. But I will not' do that: I will say simply that, rather fuddled with liquor as lie was, he saw the torch and said to himself, ‘Someone has taken mine, so I’ll take this one’,” said Mr. Hardie Boys on behalf of Harry Bradshaw, of Tawa Flat, who was charged with stealing an electric torch from Constable It. Phillips, Mr. Boys said that the offence was committed while Bradshaw was at a dance at Tawa Elat. Before he took the torch from the constable's ear he found that as well as his own torch being missing a two-gallon jar of beer had been stolen from the car he was in. He had previously borne a good reputation. Accused was fined £1 and costs. Other Charges Heard A quarrel between the two respective owners over a dog tight led to William George Parris, amateur welterweight champion of New Zealand, appearing in the court to answer a charge laid by L. R. Mansfield that he had struck him. Parris denied the allegation, saying that when he saw Mansfield, a 17-year-old boy, kicking the dogs to separate them, lie did no more than push Mansfield away and then walk off with his dog. After other evidence had been heard the magistrate dismissed the information. Probation for two years was the sentence imposed on Daphne Isabell Richards, who was charged with stealing a watch valued at £5 from Isabella Barnett. It was stated that accused stripped the watch of the case, which she sold to a gold dealer for 2/6. The magistrate commented on the fact that it appeared that she had attempted to put the blame for the theft on another girl. “A sudden temptation on seeing' the money” was the excuse put on behalf of a 19-year-old boy, whose name was ordered to l>e suppressed, when he was charged with stealing 17/- in cash. He was ordered to make restitution of 7/that had been spent, and to come up for sentence if called upon within twelve months. A man who, it was stated, had been sleeping out in the open for a week, having refused to stay in an old men’s home. August Henry Metz, aged 69, bricklayer, was sentenced to three months for being idle and disorderly with insufficient visible lawful means of support. For using obscene language in Courtenay Place, Robert James Hutchinson was fined 30/- and costs. A miner, John Fry, aged 66, was sentenced to one month's imprisonment for his fifth offence of drunkenness in the past six months. Jack Allen was fined 10/- for procuring liquor while under a prohibition order. For unlawfully supplying liquor, Catherine Harris was fined £2 and costs. Her husband. Alfred Wilford Harris, licensee of the Clarendon Hotel, was fined £3/10/- and costs for keeping the premises open for sale and selling after hours. I

The licensee of the Carlton Hotel. Samuel Dunn, charged with exposing liquor for sale after hours, was fined £5. Janies Simson, a harman at the hotel, was charged with a s'milar offence and fined £2/10/-.

For being in licensed premises after hours, Jaekjßacon, George Gregory and Donald McLennan, were each Hued £2. Gregory pleaded guilty to having given Ibe police a false name, and was lined on that charge £l.

“You have been convicted eight times I [

since April 3,” said the magistrate to Helena Grounsell, who was charged with trading in her shop on a Sunday. “It will be made pretty expensive to you if you continue,” he added, fining her £2/10/- and costs, with 14 days to pay it. Her son, who had also been in the shop, was on the same charge convicted and. ordered to pay costs. George Yianakis was convicted and ordered to pay costs when charged also with Sunday trading.