BOOKMAKING CASES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 230, 27 June 1944, Page 4

BOOKMAKING CASES

Magistrate’s Comment (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, June 26. “It is often said by counsel in bookmaking cases that -accused is not only a good, but useful, citizen, but I say emphatically that when the law prohibits a thing and a class of men persist in breaking the law, they are disrupting the law in the community,” said the magistrate, Mr. Luxford, when he sentenced a city barman to two months’ imprisonment today for a fourth offence of bookmaking. The magistrate added that many young people who saw the law broken and flout; ed thought it was clever. A good deal of juvenile and adolescent crime had its origin in this class of law-breaking. The question of the licensing of bookmakers was solely a political one, but at present bookmaking -was outlawed and it was the duty of the Courts to see the law was enforced. “It was common knowledge that bookmaking was very rife in New Zealand. If all the Courts took a firm stand, one of two things would happen. Either the bookmakers would find that they could not carry on and would go out of business. or there would be public opposition to the penalties enforced and the law would be changed. Mr. Luxford said that, as far as his Court was concerned, persistent breakers of the law would be punished by imprisonment. Accused was Alexander John Conway, aged 38, barman, for whom counsel made a plea for leniency.