NEW TRIAL GRANTED

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 243, 15 October 1942, Page 6

NEW TRIAL GRANTED

DISAGREEMENT OF JURY. CHARGE AGAINST UNION SECRETARY. At the trial of Charles Gough, secretary of the Wellington branch of the Dairy Factory Workers' Union, who was alleged to have made subversive statements at the Oroua Downs dairy factory on February 24, the jury in the Palmerston North Supreme Court disagreed and an application for a new trial was granted. Crown witnesses stated that Gough called them slaves for working for £4 10s a week when their cobbers in Wellington got £10 for half the work they did. They said he also told them that if they liked to strike for one day they could wield more power than the watersiders, coalminers and freezing workers. Accused denied using the word strike, and said the allegations were a gross misrepresentation of the facts. He had told them the time must come for a showdown, by which he meant any stand the workers might take after the war. Addressing the jury, Mr W. P. Rollings, counsel for accused, suggested that Gough's defence had been prejudieed by the long delay in bringing the case to Court. Months had elapsed following the completion of the police inquiries. Meanwhile memories had failed and men had left the factory. The Chief Justiee also commented on the delay, saying it should not have happened. He could not see any reason why proceedings should not have been taken promptly. A police witness said the AttorneyGeneral's consent to the prosecution was only received two or three days before the lapse of the six months' time limit.