CHARGE AGAINST TENANT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 16

CHARGE AGAINST TENANT.

BROUGHT BY LANDLADY. CREDIT BY ALLEGED FRAUD. "If a person goes into a restaurant and does not pay for what he eats, he is arrested by the police and charged with obtaining credit by fraud. That being the case, if a person will not pay for rooms rented, I submit fhat he should be dealt with 1 the same way. and prosecuted by tbe police," said Mr. Matthews, who appeared for Alice Redgate at the Police Court yesterday. Informant charged Patrick Looney with fraudulently obtaining credit to the extent of £11 5/ by fraud. * Mr. Matthews stated that the charge was laid under the Police Offences Act. and the summons had been delivered to a Maori'woman, who. counsel said, resided with defendant in rooms rented from Miss Redgate. Mr. Poynton thought that in case defendant had not received the summons the case should be adjourned, but Mr. Matthews replied that defendant got the summons all right, as be thought that it was a great joke and laughed about it. Counsel said that many people took advantage of the War Regulations Act by renting rooms and paying a week or a fortnight's board in advance, and then failed to pay their way afterwards. Kucli a person was very often a "shrewdie" who would not pay and kept on promising until one month's notice was given to quit. Even after this was done the tenant would invariably not quit until ordered to by the Court, with the result that the landlord got no rent for the room, or rooms occupied. Quite a number of this class of tenants would shift from place to place and leave owinf money, and the only thing for the landlord to do would be to take civil proceedings. Very often the landlord was defrauded. Miss Redgate's only means of livelihood was to rent a few- rooms, and Looney now owed her £11 5/ and kept putting her off from week to T^eek. In adjourning the case until Monday to make sure that defendant was properly served, the magistrate said that the case was an interesting one, and the first of its kind to come before the Court. "It is time these people stopped doin<r this thing," concluded Mr. Poynton.