STORIES DISBELIEVED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 March 1939, Page 8

STORIES DISBELIEVED

MEN FOUND ON LICENSED PREMISES. CONVICTIONS ENTERED. (“Times-Age” Special.) “I do not believe their statements, and I am satisfied that they were in the hotel yard,” stated Mr H. P. Lawry, S.M., when convicting and fining John Olsen and Ronald Godfrey Green at the Greytown S.M. Court yesterday on charges of having been found on licenced premises at Greytown. Constable A. Gregor said that about 11.30 p.m. he heard a considerable amount of noise in the vicinity of the Greytown Hotel. He went round, but could not ascertain the cause. He returned about 11.45 p.m. and while speaking to the licensee, Mr A. J. Allison on the footpath he saw a motorcar start up in the hotel yard, drive out the back way up East Street, and then come out of North Street into the Main Street. He stopped the car in which were the two defendants. Green was driving and he showed signs of having had liquor. Green denied that he had been on the premises. There was a gallon jar and .a bottle cf beer in the back of the car. He said he had brought beer before 6 p.m.

To Mr C. C. Marsack. Constable Gregor said he did not think the men knew he was outside the hotel. He was absolutely definite that the party seen leaving the hotel was the same as the one he stopped. He did not know for certain that there was beer in the jar. Mr Marsack submitted that the men had not been found on premises and the men would deny they were in the hotel yard. Mr Lawry: “The constable saw the car start up, leave the yard, and states that it did not stop until he accosted it in Main Street.' The inference he must draw from that was that the men had been in the yard. That is a reasonable inference.”

John Olsen, in evidence, said that he and Green left his home about 9.15 p.m. to go to Green’s house. Green’s wife was in hospital and they went up to his place at Ahikouka to clean it up before Mrs Green came home. They left about midnight to return to witness’ home,, where Green was staying. It was then that they were stopped by Constable Gregor. They were not at the hotel, and there was no beer in the jar.

To Senior-Sergeant G. A. Doggett: “I swear I did not come out of North Street. We had not been celebrating the birth of the baby.” Ronald Godfrey Green corroborated the evidence of the previous witness, and denied that they had been at the hotel since 6 p.m. Mr Lawry said he could not accept the evidence of the defence. He was quite satisfied that Constable Gregor saw the car coming out of North Street. He convicted defendants and fined them each £1 and 10s costs.