ALLEGED INSULTS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 43, 20 February 1930, Page 10

ALLEGED INSULTS

POLITICIANS AND POLICE

COMMENT ON CASES DISMISSED

(Beceived 20th February, 2 p.m.)

SYDNEY, This Day,

The prosecutions against Messrs. James, M.H.R., and Baddeley, M.L.A., on a charge of using insulting words to the police on the coalfields, failed. The Magistrates, two of whom were local Justices, held that the words used were trifling. The. cases were dismissed.

It is rumoured that, though they were acquitted at Kurri on charges of usii j insulting words to the police at Cessnock on 18th November, Mr. Baddeley, member of the State Assembly, and Mr. James, Federal representative, will probably hear more of the matter. The Chief Secretary, in calling for reports of the ease, says that it is a most extraordinary verdict, and in the interests of justice the matter cannot be allowed to remain where it is. Apparently three members of the Court found the charge proved and two decided to dismiss the case. It is strange that Justices of the Peace should sit on the Bench in the circumstances, and it is pointed out that the two Justices in question are presidents of branches of the Australian Labour Party.

It is officially explained that outside Stipendiary Magistrates' districts, any Justice of the Peace has the right to sit on the Bench with the Police Magistrate, and in such cases the verdict goes by the majority.

The dispatch and maintenance of 379 extra police on the Maitland coalfields since Ist December has cost the Government £11,000.