LICENSEE IN COURT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 634, 10 April 1929, Page 11

LICENSEE IN COURT

CHARGED WITH SUPPLYING INTOXICATED MAN DECISION RESERVED (Special to THE SUN) THAMES, To-day. Charged with supplying an intoxicated person with liquor, George H. Pearson, licensee of the Puriri Hotel, pleaded net guilty in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The magistrate, Mr. F. W. Platts, S.M., reserved his decision. According to the police evidence a man named William Pringle, after spending £5 in a short time at the hotel, had been found lying unconscious in the scrub nearby with two bottles of beer near him. In evidence, Pringle said that at 2 a.m. on a Sunday when staying in the hotel he found himself unable to sleep. He went to the bathroom and drank half a bottle of methylated spirits and remembered nothing more until he awoke in the Thames Hospital 15 hours later, save a vague recollection of voices as he was lifted into a car. Mrs. Pearson, wife of the licensee, said she remembered meeting Pringle early on the Sunday morning and giving him a glass of stout for which he entreated her. He was quite normal in his behaviour, although he looked rather dazed. The son of the licensee, Mr. N. H. Pearson, a taxi-driver, said he drove Pringle to Wharepoa at 10.30 a.m. on th© Sunday in question. When they were nearing Wharepoa Pringle insisted on getting out and crawling under a fence. Witness left him then. At the time he had no beer with him. Under cross-examination by Sergeant Rowell, the last witness admitted that he had told the police that Pringle carried two bottles of beer. Commenting sharply on this last piece of evidence Mr. Platts reserved his decision.