HE WAS EASY

NZ Truth, Issue 1149, 8 December 1927, Page 11

HE WAS EASY

[" Pleads Guilty To Wrong Charge '

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auck

land Rep.)

Short of an order to be hanged by the neck until he is dead, there

are some defendants "who Will, al-

ways accept a, magisterial dictum philosophically. Not many, though!

AUCKLAND - records such an one. After a prisoner had listened to the charge, received the 'decision of the magistrate, and. returned , to the cell, the stentorian voice of ; tl}e orderly gave utterance to a startling Announcement. "That was, not the right map, sir!." . ■'-• ."■'•,,' ■-.-.■

Everybody blinked confusedly. . It was an extraordinary case of a man being " ushered into the dock to answer a charge of deserting from. the H.M.S. Renovyn when the battleship was m New. Zealand waters. The; man m the dock quietly listened to the charge artd actually pleaded guilty. Naval officers, were present who advised the S.M, of what procedure was required of the" court m compliance with naval authorities.

The prisoner heard himself being magisterially consigned to the armed naval picket — and then quietly returned to 'the cell.

Signs of discussion m the cell-rooms, however, brought forth, another/prisoner who stepped into the dock to the orderly's strange announcement that the first man was chained with failing to maintain his wife and knew nothing about the charge of naval desertion! ... That is how George Grainger (22), for failing to comply with a maintenance order, ran close to finding h^ttiself under the escort of two bluejackets, and to general assumption, answering to the name of Bernard Plackett. ..-.■',

"It is rather strange." observed Magistrate McKean-when Plackett was m the dock — "that the other man should stand through the whole of the case, without saying anything. Who was he?" ; - y V

The probation officer supplied the information, and when Grainger reappeared on the correct charge he was asked to explain his extraordinary behavior. •

"I got a,. bit mixed up, sir, with the names and things."