POLICE COURT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4726, 18 July 1924, Page 2

POLICE COURT.

OFFENCES ON TRAIN. £5 OR THREE MONTHS IMPOSED. At the Police Court, Paeroa, this morning, before Messrs W. Marshall and P. E. Brenan, J.’s.P., a young man nameu Harry Bell, an employee of the Public Works Department, was arraigned on three charges committed on the Frank.ton-Paeroa train last evening. The charges were drunkenness, committing a grosslj’ indecent act in a railway carriage, and exposing his person on the Paeroa railway station Bell pleaded guilty to the charge of drunkenness only, and elected to be dealt with summarily. Constable McClinchy said that in response to a telephone call he visited the railway station last evening and found the defendant in a state of intoxication in the railway carriage. Witness described the acts forming the other two charges and stated that nothing previously was known against defendant, who had given the police no trouble when he was arrested. The constable said that the defendant had also refused to hand his ticket to the railway porter when requested to do so. The acts had been committed just prior to and after the arrival of the train at Paeroa. There were women in the next carriage on the train.

Tn answer to the Bench Bell admitted that he had been drunk, but had no recollection of the indecent acts and was very ashamed of his conduct. Defendant was convicted on all three counts and discharged on the first and third charges. On the second charge he was fined £5 and costs, ss, in default three months’ imprisonment.