NOT "SLY GROGGING"

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 242, 14 October 1942, Page 2

NOT "SLY GROGGING"

COMMENT BY MAGISTRATE INTERESTING BLENHEIM CASE. DEFENDANT GUILTY OF SELLING LIQUOR. "It is an extraordinary case, and I confess to some difficulty in knowihg what to do about it," remarked Mr T. E. Maunsell, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court this morning, when discussing the question of penalty after finding Leonard James Haul guilty, in a reserved decision, on a charge of selling liquor without a lieence. A second charge of acting as agent for the purchase of intoxicating liquor for members of the Armed Forces when in uniform was dismissed. Mr Maunsell eventually imposed a fine of £3, with 10s costs. "It is not a case of sly-grog selling," added the magistrate. The defendant, he understood, had had some domestic trouble. Mr A. E, L. Scantlebury, who appeared for the defendant: He has had a lot of domestic trouble, and is in poor health and cireumstances. This has been a foolish action on his part, but I think he v/as genuine in saying that he wished to help these fellows. Doubtless he was having some of the liquor himself, and there was also the company. In reply to the magistrate, SeniorSergeant Smyth said he was not prepared to recommend probation, as had been suggested by counsel. The senior-sergeant proceeded to refer to previous trouble the defendant had been in. Mr Maunsell: You don't think prison is too severe then? — "No I don't." Contending that the defendant's previous convictions, which had all had to do with his domestic trouble, should not be held against him in the matter, Mr Scantlebury suggested that the police and military authorities could direct their energies in connection with sly grogging more profitably than in this case. The case was not a serious one, and the defendant had learned his lesson. The forfeiture of six bottles of beer and 11 empties was ordered at the request of the senior-sergeant. PART OF A SYSTEM. In his reserved decision Mr Maunsell said that the alleged offences related to different dates, but the actions of the defendant were apparently part of a system. The defendant had stated that on the first occasion, when he was alleged to have sold a bottle of beer, he had given the soldiers the beer, which was not his property. On the other occasion he had procured the beer pursuant to a request contained in a note left at his premises. If his story that the beer was to be consumed on the premises was true there was no breach of the regulations. There were, however, certain suspicious features about the case which made damaging inroads into the credibility of the defence. In the first place, said the magistrate, he found it hard to believe that the defendant handed a bottle of beer to the soldiers for consumption that was the property of another person who, at the time, was asleep on the premises. Also he found it hard to believe that he had been quite oblivious to the fact that 2s 6d was placed on the table in payment, and that he did not know what became of it. Moreover, nothing had been said in defendant's statement to the police regarding the beer not being his property. A SUSPICIG'N AROUSED. As to the second call, it had been arranged that a code word "dog legs" should be used by soldiers with stripes. "This arouses a suspicion in my mind that the defendant's actions were to his knowledge, tainted with illegality. His story that he was actuated by motives of kindness, good-fellowship and philanthropy, as a returned soldier, to soldiers who were not friends of himself is not convincing to my mind Then another

curious fact is disclosed. When the soldiers arrived to collect the beer in the evening defendant said he had not got it, but had arranged for it, and would get it on receipt of 13s 6d. He elected: not to disclose the source from which he procured it. This is more consistent with guilt than with innocence. It is elear that the defendant was making no prcfit out of the transaetions, but as the liquor was being consumed, or intended to be consumed, on his premises, he no doubt received a commission in a share of the liquor." Mr Maunsell said he did not think he could convict on the second charge under the Licensing Act Emergency Regulations of acting as agent. However, he would find him guilty on the first charge of selling iiquor without a lieence. "Counsel for the defendant criticised the actions of the soldiers in trapping the defendant in accordance with instructions. The position is that a police officer would act improperly in enticing a person to break the law, or in becoming a party to an offence unless he had evidence that similar breaches had occurred on previous occasions. The same would apply to any other person charged with the duty of detecting breaches of the law. In this case the soldiers had some evidence of prior breaches. It is not elearly established that they. enticed or persuaded the defendant to break the law," he concluded. — — — V —