PENALTY OF £25

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 4, 6 January 1936, Page 9

PENALTY OF £25

KEEPER OF CLUB

ASSISTANTS FINED £10

The remainder of the men arrested in the raid by detectives early on Saturday morning at the New Century Club, Courtenay Place, were dealt.with by Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today, the keeper of the club being lined £25, and his two" assistants each £10. Eleven men were fined on Saturday for being on'the premises—classed as a common gaming-house—and today twenty-six other men were charged. As a result. of the raid the Crown benefits by £131 10s in',fines and costs. The game played was "hazards." John Duncan, a salesman, aged i% was fined.£2s as the keeper of a common gaming house, and Andrew Lamb, a labourer, aged 35, and John' Kuben Dobson, a wharf labourer, aged 36, were, each fined- £10 for assisting to conduct the establishment. The men were allowed a month 'in' which to pay. Thg following were each fined £2, which they can pay within fourteen days:—Peter Makris. (labourer, 52), David Watson (clerk, 35), Richard Brandy (motor-driver, 43), Sydney Saunders (watersider, 36), Leslie Maxwell (miner, 49), Samuel Boyd (labourer, 42), Patrick Walker (labourer, 50), James Bardebes (shop assistant, 37), Charles Killeen /clerk, 46), Thomas Fearon (barman, 37), Douglas -Wiltons (taxi-driver, 41), Charles Parker (salesman, 23), Arthur Smithurst (grocer, 22), Torrens McFetridge (barman, 30), James Crozier (labourer, 35), Frederick Hawkins (labourer, 26), Stephen Hewland (stevedore, 55), Percy Griffiths (barman, 50), John de Sousa (salesman, 24), Frederick Courtenay (labourer, 27), and Charles Dobson (steward, 28).

Pleas of guilty were entered in each case.

In a statement submitted to the police Duncan said he had had sole control of the club since December 27, when he had taken over the premises from the previous owners, who used them solely for the purpose of playing cards. The price agreed upon was £80, of which he paid £40 in cash. That gave him the privilege of taking charge and collecting all he could from'the members. Lamb had at no time received any payment for his services, and Dobson had not received any fixed wage, relying on the generosity of the members. •

The furniture of the club belonged to the previous owners, and the billiards table was on hire. Duncan admitted that gaming had gone on nightly, but the business done was very small. At no time had a nightly attendance exceeded forty-five, and if the raid had been carried out on any night except a Friday or Saturday there would have been only a handful of men there.