SUSPENDED SENTENCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 24, 8 November 1940, Page 6

SUSPENDED SENTENCE

SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES. si A .JEHOVAH’S WITNESS. WELLINGTON, This Day. Aged 78 years, a pensioner, and claiming that he was only trying to do the Lord’s will, John Joseph Murray, a native of Ireland, was before Mv J. L. Stout, S.M., to-day, charged with having participated in the .activities of the subversive organisation known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was stated that when lie was approached by the police, as a result of complaints, accused admitted knowing that the literature he was selling was of a. subversive nature. Murray produced a. statement in in which he wished to make clear that he had claimed only to be doing what the prophet Daniel had do up in his day and that the Disciples in their day were also charged with breaking the law, hut the Magistrate told him that the Court had nothing to do with his beliefs as the Society had 1 been declared'subversive. If Mu pray admitted that ho was participating in if then lie was guilty and would lie convicted and ordered to come up for sen t one;? within 12 months, but in view of defendant’s attitude the Magistrate added a warning that if defendant persisted in his actions the Court would have to- take some other steps