MILITARY DEFAULTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1920, Page 5

MILITARY DEFAULTER.

SENTENCE OP TWELVE MONTHS. By Telftffraph.— Press Assn.—Copyrlsht. Dunodin, Last Night. Arthur Gregory McCarthy was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for unlawfully using a name other than that on which he was entered on the military defaulters' list. The defence was that he had not received notice to parade for examination, and therefore he had not evaded any lawful command, and that his name was improperly on defaulters' list. The Magistrate commented upon the accused deliberately evading service and using a fal&e name and leave pass. If counsel's, contentions were correct, the magistrate said, the position was purely Gilbertian, amounting to this: "That the accused performed his obligations by successfully evading them." Examining the law the magistrate held that the accused came within the provisions of desertion, but assuming he was not a deserter, his actions brought him within another sub-section, viz., "having otherwise made default in the obligations imposed on him." The magistrate further held that accused's name was properly on the military defaulters' list. The possibility of an appeal was mentioned by the defendant's eoungtl.