"THAT'S A LIE.”

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17975, 21 March 1930, Page 6

"THAT'S A LIE.”

SCENE IN COURT. INDIGNANT WOMAN AND COUNSEL. TENT AT MOTORISTS’ CAMP. A scene occurred in the Hamilton Magistrate's Court, this morning. Counsel was addressing the bench in a case against Duncan Alexander Calderwood, charged with failing to remove a tent from a certain allotment and with causing a nuisance, when defendant's wife advanced from the back n f the court with a billy-can beneath one arm, and waving the other, declared in a loud voice, “ That’s not true. I’m not' going to allow that to he said.” Coming to the table at which counsel, Mr W. J. King, was standing, she thumped tier fist, down and, looking aggressively into counsel’s face, shouted, “ It’s a lie, and I arn not going to allow that to pass.” It appears that Calderwood in December erected a tent on a section adjoining the motorists’ camp, °n the river bank. He was granted a provisional license until January 30, which the council has since refused to renew. Differences between him and the council arose over his alleged exploitation of motorists and the council finally decided to close down the carnp and lock up the conveniences which they had erected there. The result was to leave the section on which Calderwood's tent was pitched without any sanitary arrangements or water supply, in such circumstances the borough sanitary inspector and the chief officer of Health from Auckland, after inspecting the site, regarded it as extremely insanitary and unfit for human habitation. Calderwood was issued with a notice to quit, but he failed to do so, and to-day lie was prosecuted in consequence. Serious View Taken. Mr \V. J. King, instructed by the Borough Solicitor, was explaining the circumstances to Mr F. W. . Platts S.M., when the interruption occurred. . The Healtli Department, he said, took a serious view of the position, as there were no water supply, sanitary arrangements or drainage. There was no floor to the tent, clothes were scattered about Hie place, and the place generally was not fit. It was at this point that Mrs Calderwood, who had been standing in the doorway of tiie court, advanced menacingly, as she declared, “ 1 am not going to allow that to pass, it is not true.” 11 Don't you say any more of that,” she shouted, halting at and thumping her fist on the solicitor’s table. Mr King tarried in his speech. Turning to tiie magistrate the woman said her husband was out of town and she was just about to .go into hospital. She had come along, she said, to''try and stop that case. What the solicitor had said was not true. She was a tidy woman and was not going to allow him to put that sort of stuff over. The Magistrate thought perhaps the case should be adjourned to allow the woman’s husband to attend. Mr King said that in the meantime these people continued to live there. The ground was reeking, and, with children playing about, the Health Department considered the continued presence of the people there under existing conditions a menace to health. in adjourning the case for a week, the Magistrate told Mrs Calderwood to inform her husband of the requirements of the council and the Health Department, and that if he continued to disobey them his disobedience might add to the penalty ■