PUBLISHING DOUBLE CARD

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2958, 5 November 1925, Page 2

PUBLISHING DOUBLE CARD

SHEARSBY AGAIN BEFORE COURT. FINE OF £lO IMPOSED. The second half of the police action against Alfred Granville Shearsby, of Palmerston North, was heard in the Palmerston North Court on Tuesday (says the Times) when defendant was charged that on October 7, at Palmerston North, he did publish a document, to wit, a double card on the Wellington Handicap and the Shorts Handicap, run at Wellington on October 24. Accused pleaded guilty through his solicitor, Mr. A. M. Ongley, who said that this was the charge mentioned in the other case (heard last week) and that which gave rise to the charge of keeping a common gaming house. Counsel explained that a man named Crawford, of Hamilton, not known to defendant, wiole to Shearsby stating that he had learned from a. man named Cate of defendant’s operations and asking defendant to send him a double card. This defendant did. “Crawford” was a constable. As Ibis was part of the other charge, on which defendant had paid the maximum of £IOO, counsel asked for leniency. Detective-Sergeant Quirke, who conducted the case for the police, said that the facts were not altogether as counsel had stated. The practice of the double card was quite distinct from the other case, where defendant was conducting a business on his premises. Defendant had been corresponding with difierent parts of the country whereby he created a lot of betting and made a lot of money. The Sergeant asked for the maximum penalty of £2O. “He is not paying the money, the public is doing that,” he said. However, the Bench remarked that defendant had paid the maximum line of £IOO, and in this case would impose a penalty of £lO.