LICENSING OFFENCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1943, Page 4

LICENSING OFFENCES

EUROPEAN AND FIVE MAORIS BEFORE COURT LIQUOR FOR MARINE CORPS MEMBERS. MAGISTRATE IMPOSES FINES. Edwin Spicer was fined £5 and 10s costs, when he appeared before Mi - H. P. Lawry, S.M., in the Masterton Magistrate’s Court today on a charge of having acted as agent in the purchase of two gallons of beer for a member of the armed forces.

Senior Sergeant C. Murphy said Spicer had purchased the beer fox - a visiting sei’vice man.

Charges of aiding and abetting a membei’ of the Marine Corps in the drinking of liquox - off the premises in a Maori no-licence area, were preferred against Thomas Carroll, Ernest Governor, Harold Walker - , House Rimene and Guy Pura. The defendants, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted and each fined £5 and 12s costs. Constable Bell said at 11.5 p.m. on March 22, he, Constable Berry and a Marine Provost went to a house at To Ore Ore, where, according to a complaint, men were drinking and fighting. The house was surrounded, but one man got away. The defendants were in the kitchen with two Marines and some Maori girls. There was a 36gallon keg of beer, which was half full, on the table. The defendants admitted to him that they had been drinking. Constable R. J. Berry said one of the defendants told him the beer - had been brought to the house in a “jeep.” The Marines admitted they had bought die liquor. Constable A. W. Nalder stated in evidence that the defendants were all natives.

In entering convictions, Mi - Lawry said he would take into account the fact that the defendants were first offenders.