ILLEGAL LOTTERIES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 202, 8 June 1933, Page 7

ILLEGAL LOTTERIES

ORGANISERS FINED £5.

FUNDS FOR RELIEF OF DISTRESS

(Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, June 7

As a sequel to the Eastbourne Easter carnival, the organiser, Donald Douglas McDonald, was charged at Lower Hutt to-day with, establishing a lottery by which a radio set was disposed of by mode of chance and with establishing a lottery by which a motor-car was similarly disposed of. Pleas of guilty to both charges were entered. The police statement mentioned that the fair was to raise funds,for the relief of distress and that defendant offered his services as organiser. He suggested the lotteries, and was to get 10 per cent, of the profits for his organising work. Defendant was warned by the police that the lotteries were illegal, hut defendant carried on and completed them. It was claimed that it was a case,for a substantial penalty, because defendant bad carried on after being warned, and had done it- not only for the distress fund, but for gain for himself.

Counsel for the defence urged that the offence was committed before Mr E. Page, S.M., gave his decision that the disposal of prizes by a shooting competition was illegal. It was also urged that it was impossible to stop the lotteries, which were already well under way when the police intervened.

Mr T. McNeill, S.M., said, that though he did not want it to go forth that he was countenancing breaches of the Act-, he was of opinion, considering the objects for which the fund was raised, that these lotteries were on a different footing from the one with which Air Page was concerned. He convicted defendant on both charges, fined him £5 on the first and ordered him to pay costs on the second.