MAGISTRATE'S COURT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 305, 19 August 1932, Page 6

MAGISTRATE'S COURT

Our District Correspondent)

MINOR PROSECUTIONS AT YESTERDAY'S OPOTIKI SITTINGS

(From

The following cases came bef°re Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the Opotiki Magistrate's Courf on Wednesday: — Wharepapa Ngara was fined £1 and costs for causing damage to a cow by setting his dogs on it. It was stated that the cow's ears had been damaged. . - ~ Mr. G. Murray appeared for H. Kingi, a Maori charged with converting a horse to his own use and ,stealing a saddle and bridle. Constable Pirini, of Te Kaha, stated that he understood that the accused had taken the hoi-se from Te Kaha and ridden it to Omaio, where he left it. • The owner, Mrs. Augxist, had looked • for the horse at Te Kaha and after waiting two or three days for it, had ; been compelled to use a service car i as a means of transport. Iix answer to Mr. Murray, Constable Pirini admitted that this was only what he had heard not what he had seen. Mr. Murray suggested that the facts of the case were that the defendant had found it necessary to go to Omaio in a hurry and had therefore borrowed a horse at Te Kaha without asking" permission. He had intended borrowing a friend's horse, but unfortunately had borrowed a stranger's instead. The accused was fined £2 and costs on the first charge and the second was dismissed. For taking two dogs from Opotiki to Gisborne without having them dipped or sprayed, Oliver Goldsmith, of Ruatoria, was fined £2 and costs. A letter from Goldsmith was read in which he stated that he had made inquiry at the White Star Ofixce in Rotorua and from a service car driver, and had been told that a perrnit was unnecessary. Mr. Urquhart, stock inspector, pointed out that the White Ctar Offiee had nothing to do with the cattle tick regulations, and although the defendant could have had the dogs sprayed by the boundary inspector he had not done so. Elizabeth Parkinson was fined £1 and costs on each of two chai'ges, of breaking the borough by-laws in connection with the bui'ying and removal of nightsoil. Mr. M. J. Foggarty, health inspector of Whakatane, prosecuted.