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Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1917, Page 4

A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE. At the New 'Plymouth Magistrate's Court on Friday, the 20th inst., a barmaid at the White Hart Hotel was convicted under the War Regulations Act, and fined £5 and automatically disqualified from serving in a bar for a period of six months. A consideration of the facts shows that there is more than a possibility that a miscarriage of justice lias occurred. The facts, brielly, are that on June IS three men entered the hotel at about 8.30 a.m., called for drinks, and were supplied by the barman. Later .Miss Kelly was in the bar, and the three called again for refreshments, each it is alleged, paying for his own drink. The three left the hotel shortly after. Subsequently one of them, Hugh Wilson, was found in a drunken and senseless condition on the beach, was arrested and taken t.o the lock-up, and subsequently made a statement to the police to the effect that he had treated his friends on each occasion at the White Hart Hotel. Later, the three were summoned under the War Regulations Act. Wilson pleading guilt,®, but the others pleading not guilty. Thereupon Miss Kelly was summoned, and charged with an offence against the law. I Evidence against her was given by Wilson, admittedly a man of drunken habits. It was not corroborated in any way. The barmaid's evidence was not shaken by vigorous

cross-examination by the police, yet the magistrate had no hesitation in convicting the girl, and imposing a fine of £5, which, since it means the loss of her position for six months, represents a tine of £IOO. At the worst, there was a doubt in this case; at the best she was innocent, and we submit that it would

have been more in accordance with justice to have given her the benefit of the doubt. For ourselves, we would believe no drunken man. In this case tile evidence accepted by the Magistrate was that of a man who six hours after the al-

leged offence was in a perfectly helpless and hopeless condition through drink. It seems incredible that uncorroborated evidence given under these circumstances should be accepted in preference to the evidence given by a respectable young lady. It requires no prescience to see that if every magistrate believed the statement of a drunk, no barmaid or barman, or any customer of a hotel, would be safe. It should be necessary for satisfactory corroborative evidence to bo tendered before a conviction is entered. As it is, this girl

is branded as a perjurer—on the word of a man who confessed to having been drunk from between j and 10 a.m. and 3 in the afternoon, when he was picked up in a paralytic state. The anti-shouting law, no doubt, is dit

iicult to uphold in a hotel wlien so many people have no regard for its observance, and the police have no light task in securing convictions, but there are no reasons for depending upon the shaky evidence of a drunken man to bring ruin to what in the eyes •«" the public is an innocent girl. The comments made above relative .j the bar-

maicl apply with equal force in tin? case of tlie barman. We hope the matter will Ik l taken up and representations made to the Justice Department so as to obtain a review of the magistrate's