SELLING LIQUOR AFTER HOURS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10059, 29 January 1909, Page 1

SELLING LIQUOR AFTER HOURS.

(Per Press Association".) Auckland, January 28. Judgment was uiven this afternoon bv Mr Kettle. S. M.. in the ease of the police a-ainst William Henry Wrathall. licensee or the St. Heliers llav Hotel for having, on Sunday, the 20th of December l::st, sold liquor in contravention nf the licensing laws, defendant being fined £ls on each of the three convictions. His Worship, after 'giving his verdict, went on to say that he saw no reason to alter the opinion he expressed yesterday about the manner in which the case was brought. It was not a proper thing for anyone, especially constables and detectives, to tempt or induce any person to commit any kind of offence with a view of prosecuting them if they fell. He thought that anyone who went to a hotel at an hour when the sale of liquor was illegal and attempted to get the licensee to suvxc him was in law equally guilty with the licensee who served him. In his Worship's opinion it was a wrong thing for anyone —policeman or detective—to j;o into an hotel and, by offering money, induce the licensee to commit a breach of the Act. Section 54 of the Gaming Act indemnified the police in cases of this kind, and if necessary in this Act it should be in the Licensing Act. Until such a section was introduced into the Licensing Act, making it lawful for persons to act as these constables had acted, it was not only wrong, but it was contrary to law and contrary to his Worship's sense of British fair play.