COURT ACTIONS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22338, 24 May 1947, Page 6

COURT ACTIONS

SQUATTERS PROSECUTED FINES AND INJUNCTION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 23. Two court actions were brought against the Abel Tasman House squatters almost simultaneously this morning A lew minutes alter the magistrate fined five husbands £lO each for trespass, Mr. Justice Cornish in chambers granted the .'Wellington Ladies’ Christian Association an injunction restraining the squatters from turiher occupancy of . Abel Tasman House. The injunction is to lie in Court for 14 days in consideration ot Ihe families’ assurance that ail hoped to find other accommodation within a fortnight. It was stated in the Magistrate's Court on behalf of the defendants that one couple had been living in a converted tool shed and the accumulated misery caused by social and economic circumstances beyond their control forced them to enter the house, which haa been empty for some weeks. It was also stated that there were 3000 unsatisfied applications for houses in Wellington. The magistrate said the Court could not let natural sympathy override the fact that the law had been broken. •’The penally must be a serious one. It needs no stressing by me what etTect the extension of this sort of act would have, both on the law of the land and tiie rights of property. In the Supreme Court chambers when the motion for an injunction was heard before Mr. Justice Cornish it was . stated that the Ladies’ Christian A: soeiation was waiting the vacant possession of the premises to hand the house to the R.S.A. as a hostel for disabled servicemen. In consideration of the ditlicult position of the squatters tin association suggested that the order lie in the Court for 14 days. In granting the application the judge awarded costs against all six defendants. The five families still in occupation are to pay £3 3s each and the other defendant who left the premises on April 23. £2 2s.