APPEALS DISMISSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 April 1941, Page 6

APPEALS DISMISSED

OSTLER AND CHRISTIE UNANIMOUS DECISION. SENTENCES TO STAND ’ (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Appeal Court his morning delivered its judgment in the appeal of Harold Alexander Ostler and Travers Burnell Christopher Christie. The court unanimously approved their convictions and dismissed their appeals against the sentences imposed upon them. “As to the appeals against the sentences," said the Chief,Justice (Sir M. Myers, in announcing the decision of the Court of Appeal, "having regard to 1 the .serious nature of the subversive statements contained in the publication —‘The People's Voice' —I do not think that any case has been made out for revision.” Mr. Justices Fair and Johnston agreed that, the prisoners’ appeals against the validity of their convictions failed. On the question of the sentence. Mr. Justice Fair said: “With regard to the appeal against their sentences, I agree that for persons who are doing their utmost to impede the national war effort by widespread propaganda dr a virulent type, urging that we should not fight for liberty, but engage in internal dissension, the sentences were far from excessive.”

Ostler and Christie were tried in the Supreme Court at Christchurch on February 13 last, before Mr. Justice Northcroft, and a jury, on a charge of attempting to publish a subversive statement They were found guilty and were each sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour.