PURCHASE OF BICYCLE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21204, 29 August 1940, Page 6

PURCHASE OF BICYCLE

CASE AGAINST DEALER CANCELLATION OF LICENSE The purchase and resale of a bicycle by a second-hand dealer had a sequel before Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the. Magistrate’s Court, Hamilton, to-day, when George Craig, licensed second-hand dealer, of Hamilton (Mr A. H. Powell) faced a charge of buying a second-hand bicycle on or about July 3 and failing to enter particulars of the transaction in a book, as required by Section 8 of the Second-hand Dealers Act, 1908. A further charge against Craig was that he failed to retain possession of the bicycle for not less than one month before disposing of it, as required by the Act. Pleas of guilty were entered on both counts. Detective-Sergeant J. Thompson said that defendant bought the second-hand cycle from a youth for 30s and a few days later sold it to another man for £2 10s. He failed to enter details in his second-hand book. The youth was later arrested in Auckland and admitted that he had stolen the cycle and sold it to defendant, who at first denied any knowledge of the machine. The offence was a serious breach of the Act. Craig had not previously been in trouble.

Defendant was getting old, said Mr Powell, and his memory was not as good as it should be. He had not been in business long and was not fully conversant with the requirements of the Act. His defective memory might account for the trouble to some degree. and he stated that he bought the machine only because he had a ready buyer for it. “This appears to me to be a case of deliberate dishonesty, and defendant is not a man who should hold a second-hand dealer’s license,” said the magistrate. On the first charge Craig was convicted and ordered to pay costs and had his license cancelled. On the second charge he was convicted and ordered to pay costs.