HEAVY FINES IMPOSED

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 15, 28 October 1927, Page 11

HEAVY FINES IMPOSED

--- a ~ BOR NOT REGISTERING. Another batch of radio -istenersin who had failed to obtain their wireless licenses appeared beiore Mr. J. H. Salmon, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court, Wellington, last week, and were heavily fined in some cases. | Mr. ‘J. M. ‘Tudhope, Assistant-Crown Solicitor, who prosecuted for the Post and Telegraph Department, said that the offence of failing to obtain licenses was becoming altogether too comimon. "It is very difficult to detect | these offenders,’? he said, "*’and, that being so, the Department may in future make them forfeit their sets, as st has full power to do so under the Act. In order to warn those who have not yet obtained their licenses," he added, "I would like to say that at the present moment the Department is instituting a vigorous campaign against them, and will leave no stone unturn-. ed to have their whereabouts discover- | ed" , The following were fined the amounts stated:-Sydney Roland Ellison, £1; Jack Cantwell, Henry William. Freed, John Baptist Moore, Mormeu Sander, Bernard ‘rue, and Joseph Llewellyn Evans, £2; Staniey Bruce Young, £1. Robertson McGregor Stewart, Carl | fiversleigh, Mrs, Marion Hand, Mrs. Alice Lander, and John Vincent Williams were each convicted, and ordered to pay costs. The cases in which F. J. W. Fear and Company and Harrington’s (N.Z.), Litd., are charged with failing to keep records of radio sales were adjourne.} There can be no doubt that heavier fines will be inflicted, shortly, by New Zealand Magistrates when owners of unlicensed receiving sets are convicted sa . wage In people who use unlicensed wireless sets are known as "black listeners."" Judging from a recent report the number of offenders would appear to be increasing, 558 having been summoned during three months of the present vear as against 488 in the corresponding quarter of 1926. As a result of their increase the anthorities have made it known that in future they will press for the infliction of the more severe punishment provided for in the regulations. which includes fot only the confiscation of illegallv-used instruments, but also three weeks’ imprisonment for offenders.