"POTENT DRINK"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 56, 3 September 1943, Page 3

"POTENT DRINK"

SELLER SENT TO GAOL

"It is a very p_ptent drink and has a most peculiar effect on men. It's not like ordinary whisky which makes a man drunk. It'does much more than that. He's absolutely insensible after he has had it," said Senior-Sergeant G. J. Paine in the Magistrate's Court today concerning three bottles of

liquor which were produced as exhibits against Bernard Franklin Dodds, 34, freezing worker, who pleaded, guilty to selling liquor without a licence and was sentenced by Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., to 21 days' imprisonment.

The Senior-Sergeant said that Dodds resided at Paekakariki. A serviceman coming out of his premises one Sunday with a bottle of liquor was met by a provost to whom he admitted buying the bottle for £3.

, Thirty-two servicemen had been seen visiting Dodds's premises that afternoon, and some had left with parcels. The liquor in three - bottles was

analysed, and was found to contain 61 per cent, proof spirit in one and •56 per cent, in two others. That was just below the standard strength of whisky. "There is no suggestion that this is real whisky," said " Senior-Sergeant Paine. "It is home made and is very strongly alcoholic, and as a result of drinking it quite a number of men were placed in hospital and had to undergo medical treatment." Dodds's house had been a source of annoyance to both military and civil police, said the Senior-Sergeant. Dodds had

never been before a Court previously

Mr. D. Perry said that this was not a case of a man who had acquired liquor for the purpose of entering into illicit trade with' it. The liquor in

question had been left at Dodds's house

by some servicemen who attended a social gathering there the previous night, and there was no • other liquor on the premises. Dodds was in poor health, and suffered from a serious physical disability. Counsel asked for leniency. A charge of supplying fliquor to a member of the Armed Forces for consumption elsewhere than on the premises was dismissed, the Magistrate saying that he. thought that charge was intended for licensed premises.