CIVIL COURT CASE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 63, 17 March 1915, Page 7

CIVIL COURT CASE.

Per Press Asscctviion. Hamilton, Aiarch 16. “I consider this is a case where the criminal law has been put in motion to collect a civil debt,” was the comment of Senior-Sergeant Cassells at the S.M. Court to-day. He referred to a case in which the police received instructions from Dunedin to arrest and have remanded to Dunedin a previous resident of the southern city on a charge of selling a cash register, which lie represented to he his own. The arrestee appeared at Court today, when a local member of the legal profession said he had been instructed by a Dunedin firm of solicitors who began the criminal proceedings, to withdraw the charge. His AVorship said ho did not think there was any' doubt that the criminal side of the law had been used as a lever to enforce the payment. Senior-Sergeant Cassels remarked: “It is simply making the Court and police debt collectors, your AVorship. It is like enforcing payment at the point of the bayonet.” The withdrawal of the charge was permitted.