PROSECUTION FAILS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 24

PROSECUTION FAILS

Charge Against Printer Dismissed REGISTRATION OF PRESS Holding that the prosecution had failed to establish a breach of the Act, Mr, W. F. Stilwell, S.JI., iu a reserved judgment yesterday, dismissed a charge brought against George Deslancles, a printer, under the Printers’ and Newspapers’ Registration Act, of keeping an unregistered printing press. The facts, which were not in dispute, were that defendant had registered in accordance with the Act in September. ISOS, and after his business had been formed into an incorporated company it went into liquidation. The liquidator sold some, of the assets to a broker, from whom defendant purchased a printing press, and he recommenced business oti his own account It was admitted he did not re-register but counsel submitted that the ISOS registration was sufficient. “There does not appear to be anything in the Act to indicate that registration is to cease on change of ownership, nor is there any provision for Its expiration or . its renewal either annually or at any other time, and it would seem that registration having once been effected, re-registration in circumstances parallel to those here existing would be an unnecessary duplication and not within tlie requirement of (he statute,” the magistrate said. "This is a penal statute and must be strictly construed. The onus is on th« prosecution to establish the facts tc prove beyond any reasonable doubt a defined detailed breach of a statute.”