MAYOR AND MAGISTRATE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1922, Page 2

MAYOR AND MAGISTRATE.

A HEATED ALTERCATION. DIFFERENCE OVER JURY LIST. Blenheim, April 8. A very heated altercation between the Mayor of Blenheim, Mr. E. S. Parker, and the Stipendiary Magistrate, Mr; P. L. Rollings, occurred yesterday at a meeting of justices for the revision of the jury list, culminating in the magistrate threatening to “give the Mayor seven days in Picton Gaol.” At the commencement the magistrate said he had been through the list, and as no objection was lodged it could be taken as read and formally signed. The Mayor stated that a number of names o-f people who had left the district wanted deletion. In response the magistrate ordered the clerk of the Court to walk through the corridor calling for objections. The magistrate declined to open the subject and the Mayor persisted that the names be read, and after argument the clerk commenced to read the names. When the name of a man who had left the district was read the Mayor moved that it be struck off. The magistrate called on the Mayor to go into the box and take the oath and make formal objections. The Mayor declined, stating that he was there as a justice and not as a witness. Hot words ensued, and the Mayor then left the room. Subsequently the name qf a dead man was read, but the magistrate refused to strike it off without the evidence of the registrar of deaths. The Mayor then returned and moved an adjournment for a fortnight under the Juries Act, section k 2l. The magistrate stated that the Mayor “needn’t read that, as I knew it before you were born,” and refused to accept the motion. The Mayor appealed to the other J.P.’s to vote and the magistrate warned the Mayor that he was not on the Bench.

The Mayor said, heatedly, “Well, I’ll come up on the Bench, if you like.” The Magistrate: “If you do I will give you a week in Picton Gaol.” The Mayor then left the meeting, the magistrate still calling after him, and the jury list was eventually signed. The Mayor has formally written to the magistrate objecting, and the matter is being taken further.