WANDERING STOCK

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 104, 19 May 1937, Page 5

WANDERING STOCK

Magistrate Gives Judgment In Taradale Case DIFFERENT FROM THE USUAL

Reserved Judgment was given by Mr. J. Miller, S.M., in the Hastings Magistrate 's Court this morning in a number of eliarges, lieaTd the previous week, of allowing istoek to wander. The defendants were Allen Masters, Millner John Holt, Frattk Donnelly and Ralph Yule. The first three were defended by Mr. W. S. Averill and the last-men-tioned by Mr. T. E. O'Dowd. Each of the defendants was convicted and discharged. At the hearing of the ease it was stated that six horses had been found on the Taradale-Fernhill road. One of tlie'se had collided with a motor-ear, resulting in the driver's arm being fractured. They were later impounded, and the defendants claimed them. The defence argued the question of guilt on a point ofe law. The defendants' property adjoined the Ngaruroro river, it was stated, and, because of flooding, the boundari.es abutting on to the riverbank were left unfenced. The horses on this particular occasion ap* parently crossed the river and went through properties on the other side. The horses would have had t# travel about one mile and a-half to' get to the road and must have gone through five or six gates and over a small bridge. 'One of the defendants stated in evidence that he thought it very unlikely these horses would cross this bridge without being forced across, and suggested that some unathorised person had driven them, No trouble of this kind had ever been experienced before. The boundaries of the properties extended to the middle of the water. The horses were last seen in the paddock three days previously. A number pf cross fences through the river had been removed since the Rivers Board began its new scheme. His Worship, in giving judgment, said the' cases were diffierent from the usual class of oifences under the Impounding Act. The object was to make the owner secure his gates and fences. The horses in question had not wandered before and they were in an isolated part of a riverbed. Access to a road meant going over a narrow bridge and through five fences of a neighbouring property. Under the circumstances, His Worship said, each of the defendants would be convicted and iischarged.